


Fourteen Days

by brinshannara



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Post-Break Up, Quarantine, Sanvers - Freeform, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 69,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24499234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinshannara/pseuds/brinshannara
Summary: Due to some strange circumstances, Alex and Maggie get quarantined together at the outset of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers & Maggie Sawyer, Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer
Comments: 732
Kudos: 731





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is based in canon, before Alex resigns from the DEO, but after Crisis. As such, Alex is dating Kelly, though she won't have a large part in this fic, so I'm not even bothering to tag that relationship.
> 
> Warning #1: I'm not sure if this is a fix-it fic yet. Regardless of whether it ends up that way or not, both Alex and Maggie are going to have a lot of interesting thoughts and conversations and interactions, with a lot of talking about their past relationship. This is very much a Sanvers fic. -- EDIT -- OKAY OKAY IT'S A FIX-IT, ARE YOU HAPPY? ;)
> 
> Warning #2: This may go slowly. I have another 3ish or so chapters written, but there's going to be quite a few more than that, I would imagine. I'll try to update every few days while I have material and then we'll have to wait for me to write more. Definitely subscribe to the story to get notified as to when it gets updated!

Alex Danvers was at a conference in Gotham. She hadn't particularly wanted to go, but there would be new equipment on display that might be useful for the DEO. Lex had encouraged her to go, even as the global COVID-19 pandemic raged around the world. Frankly, she still wasn't entirely convinced that he wasn't hoping she'd contract the virus.

Dressed in a nice pantsuit, Alex headed down to the conference center after having breakfast in her room. As she exited the elevator, she looked around to get her bearings and saw the lines of people at the registration tables. She got into the A-M line to get her badge and lanyard.

That's when she heard her name.

"Danvers."

She recognized the voice. She'd know it anywhere. With a swallow, she'd turned to her right. And there she was, Maggie Sawyer, in the flesh. Her ex-fiancée. Looking gorgeous as ever. She was even smiling, showing off her dimples.

"Maggie," she'd acknowledged.

"How've you been?"

It was awkward. So awkward. They hadn't spoken, not even texted, in months. In more than a year, maybe. She nodded. "Good, good," she said. "You?"

"Okay," she smiled. "I like the hair."

Alex self-consciously ran her fingers through her hair. "Thanks."

Maggie arrived at the head of her line and checked in, getting her badge. Once done, she passed by Alex. "See ya 'round, Danvers."

"See ya," she replied, and forced herself to blink back tears.

Alex texted Kara at her first opportunity.

"Maggie's here."

"Uh, oh. Everything okay?"

"It's fine, I guess. I just… I wasn't expecting to want to burst into tears."

"I'm sorry," her sister responded. "Anything I can do?"

"Rescue me? :P" Alex replied.

"You let me know if you're serious."

She forced herself to take some calming breaths. "I'm fine," she sent, hoping to convince herself.

Alex managed to avoid Maggie for the rest of the first day and even most of the second day, only catching a glimpse of her ex twice during the talks they both attended.

It was the end of the second day of the conference when she got the news that the state was locking down everything, due to the pandemic. The number of confirmed cases within the state, particularly within the city of Gotham, had spiked dramatically overnight and the state had decided to shut everything down as a precaution. The conference was cancelled early, but flights were also cancelled. At least she still had her hotel room for the night. And a sister who could fly her home.

"Hey, they're shutting everything down here," she texted Kara.

"Same here. You okay?"

"Yeah, just gonna need a lift tomorrow, I think."

"Sure, you let me know when, it'll just take a few minutes. What about Maggie?"

"What about Maggie?"

"... do you want me to bring her back to National City too?"

_ Shit. _ She hadn't even thought about Maggie.

"Alex?"

She sighed. "Let me check with her."

Alex flipped to her favourites and, with a deep breath, selected Maggie, whose contact information was still there, alongside Kara and, now, Kelly. She started a new message. "Hey, are you good to get back to National City?"

"My flight was cancelled. Yours too?"

"Yeah." She paused before continuing and cursed aloud. "Kara wants to know if you want a lift."

"I don't want to impose."

She sat heavily on the bed, muttering profanity the entire time. "It's no imposition. Kara specifically asked about you."

"You told Kara I was here?"

_ Shit. _ "I mentioned we'd run into one another, yeah."

"Well, that's nice of her to ask. If you're sure that it's okay, then yes, I'd love to get back home."

_ Fuck. _ "Sure, we were thinking tomorrow morning."

"Sounds good, Danvers, thanks for thinking of me."

"Sure thing. I'll text you in the morning."

With that, Alex fell backwards onto the bed and covered her eyes with her left forearm. "Fuckity fucking fuck."

***

The next morning, Alex showered, packed up and met Maggie in the lobby of the hotel at 9:30.

"Morning, Danvers," Maggie said, cheerfully. She looked good, as much as Alex hated to admit it, in her dark blue jeans, a light blue button-up shirt and her leather jacket folded across her arm.

"Morning," she replied. All she wanted to do was go home and get back to Kelly and not have to deal with Maggie. With any luck, that's exactly what would happen in the next thirty or so minutes.

They checked out of their rooms and Alex texted Kara to say they were ready.

She frowned as her phone rang. It was her sister.

"Kara?"

"So there's a problem."

"What do you mean, there's a problem?" she asked, looking over at Maggie.

"I mean, it's not just New Jersey that's locked down. California is, too. They don't want to let people in."

"But we live there!" Alex exclaimed, more than a little outraged.

"I know, I know. I've been working on it half the night with…" She paused and made a small gagging noise. "Lex. I think we'll be able to argue to the governor that you're essential personnel."

She looked back over at Maggie, who was looking at her intently. "Our state doesn't want us, apparently. Kara's going to work with Lex to get me back in. You want her to talk to your captain?"

Maggie nodded. "Yeah, have her contact Captain Espinoza. I'll call her and let her know."

She nodded back. "You'll want to talk to Captain Espinoza at NCPD, too."

"Okay, sounds good. I'll keep you posted."

"Thanks, Kara," she said, hanging up. She sighed and slid her phone into her pocket and looked over at Maggie.

"That's right, Captain, Supergirl and the DEO are negotiating with the governor's office to get permission to bring back their DEO agent and… Yes, that's right. If there's anything you can do to deem me as essential personnel… Thanks, Captain, appreciate it. Sorry for the early call. Okay, thanks." She hung up and tucked her phone away. "So?"

She shrugged. "She'll work on it with Lex and your captain and they'll talk to the governor. She'll keep me posted." She blew out a breath.

"C'mon, Danvers," Maggie said, with a broad smile, her dimples appearing. "Let me buy you breakfast."

Putting on a brave face, Alex followed Maggie to the hotel's restaurant, dragging her small suitcase behind her.

They were seated by a window and perused the menu. They sat there together, quietly, reviewing the menu options. Once the waiter arrived, after a minute or two, Alex decided on two eggs, bacon and a fruit cup and handed the menu back to the waiter.

"Just a sesame-seed bagel for me," Maggie said, to the waiter. "Dry, double-toasted."

Alex snorted, as Maggie handed the menus to the waiter.

"What?"

"That's still gross." She wasn't sure it was okay to criticize her decision, even though it was more of a retread of an old argument than a new one.

"To each their own, Danvers," she smiled, sipping at her black coffee. "So, how've you been?"

It was weird, Alex acknowledged to herself, how easy and awkward it was, all at once. "I've been good," she said. "I was made director last year."

"I heard," Maggie smiled. "Congratulations."

"Thanks." She wondered how she'd heard. Maybe Vasquez? "How about you?"

"Still investigating all things that go bump in the night," she joked. "Doing pretty well, overall. I'm hoping to take the lieutenant's exam in a couple of months."

She nodded, finding that she was genuinely happy at the prospect of Maggie's advancement in her career, although what she really wanted to do was to broach the subject of partners. Still, she didn't want to seem like she was gloating if Maggie was single, or let Maggie think she was angling for something. Instead of saying anything, she sipped at her orange juice.

"So this pandemic thing," Maggie said, clearly trying to get a conversation going, "what are your thoughts?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure. It's too early to get a solid death rate, because there's not a lot of testing yet. Plus the R0 is still unknown."

"The 'are-not'?"

"R-naught, as in zero," she corrected. "It's the reproduction rate. Essentially, how many people will get sick from one infected person."

"Ah. So that tells you how infectious it is?"

"It's a proxy for it, yeah," Alex nodded. "The flu is pretty contagious and its R0 is around 1.3."

"So for every one person who gets it, they infect an average of 1.3 people?"

"Right. And measles is incredibly infectious, with an R0 of like, 12-15 or something ridiculous."

Maggie blinked. "Good thing we have a vaccine for measles."

"No kidding." She sipped at her juice. "So the R0 for this thing is said to be somewhere around two to three."

"Two to three people get infected for every single one?"

Alex nodded. "Early reports out of China indicate that, yeah, though a lot more research is needed. Once we get back to National City, we'll want to self-isolate, too, make sure we didn't get sick here." She waved her hand in the general direction of the rest of the dining room.

"I read the incubation period is two weeks, is that true?"

"As far as I know, yeah, so we should isolate for at least that long."

"Ugh, isolation for two weeks?"

Alex nodded.

"Can't the DEO test us and figure out if we're sick?"

She shook her head. "Nothing's calibrated yet. It'll take a couple of weeks to make sure that we're getting accurate test results on this particular virus, not to mention doing the right kinds of tests."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there are two basic kinds of tests: one that would ideally confirm whether or not the virus is active in your system and another that tests for antibodies."

"Oh, so the antibody test would tell you if you've had it at any point, because antibodies would be present."

"Right," she nodded, "but it wouldn't tell you if you were currently sick but asymptomatic. And," she added, "we don't know how long the antibodies last. Is it forever, like chicken pox? Or is it a year or two, like the flu? So even with all our equipment at the DEO, testing isn't going to be a replacement for quarantine."

She sighed. "So two weeks of isolation."

"More, if you're sick," Alex pointed out.

"Great. That's not going to go over well."

Alex froze, wondering with whom it wouldn't go over well, but again, she wasn't sure how to ask.

Maggie, always the detective, smiled. "I've got a temporary roommate, from work. She just moved to National City and her wife and kids are back in Metropolis. She's been house-hunting and I have a spare room, so I said she could stay with me."

"Is she still in National City?"

"Yeah," she responded.

"Not sure you're going to want to isolate yourself with another person who might not be infected."

"So, what, I'm gonna go to a hotel? I'm gonna kick her out? During a pandemic? When she can't leave the state to go back home to Metropolis?"

"We'll see what the governor has to say," Alex reassured her. "I'm sure we'll figure something out."

Midway through breakfast, Kara texted Alex. She pushed the rest of her bacon strip into her mouth and pulled her phone out of her pocket.

"Governor's given the okay for you and Maggie, but there are some conditions."

"Sure," Alex texted back. "Anything to just get back home."

"Okay. Are you ready?"

"If you come by in about twenty minutes, we should be done breakfast."

"You're having breakfast together? Like adults?"

"It appears that I am, in fact, capable of having breakfast with my ex without one of us wanting to kill the other."

"... are you okay? Alex? Alex, text me SOS if you've been kidnapped. ;)"

"I hate you. :P"

"You love me."

She sighed. "See you soon."

"What's the news?" Maggie asked, as Alex put her phone back into her pocket.

"The governor has agreed to let you and me go back to California, but there are apparently some conditions."

"Do we know what they are?"

"Kara will let us know when she gets here in about twenty minutes."

"Sounds good."

They finished eating and paid, Maggie picking up the bill as she'd promised, despite Alex's protests. Once done, they made their way outside.

Kara landed about five minutes later and was, predictably, surrounded by adoring fans.

"I didn't miss this," Maggie muttered.

"She's just gonna take a few selfies and then we'll be on our way," Alex said. "It's not like I'm a huge fan of it either, you know."

"I remember."

They stood there awkwardly for a moment until Kara finished her selfies and strode over to them.

"Supergirl," Maggie greeted. "I like the pants."

"Thanks! They are absolutely the best," she grinned.

"So what are the conditions?" Alex asked.

Kara's Supergirl façade faded a bit as she knit her fingers together and looked nervous.

"Ka-- uh, Supergirl. Come on. What is it?"

"They want you both to be quarantined in the DEO for two weeks."

Maggie snorted. "Nope."

"The governor is insisting," she said.

"I am not going to be stuck in those cages for two weeks," Alex argued. "There's not even a bathroom in them."

"Oh, now I'm  _ definitely  _ not going," Maggie said, folding her arms across her chest. "Asking permission to use the bathroom? To shower? No thanks. I'll take my chances here."

"Can't I just go home?" asked Alex. "It's not like I'm living with anyone."

"My instructions are to bring you both to the DEO," Kara said, with a slight shrug.

"Hang on," Alex said, pulling out her phone and calling Lex. "Let me see what I can do." She paused as the call connected. "Mr. Luthor," she said, "with all due respect, quarantining me for two weeks at the DEO doesn't make sense."

"Why not, Director?"

"Sir, I live alone. I can quarantine myself in my own home without issue and without risking transmission to anyone else."

"I suppose I can argue with the governor on your behalf, Director. What about the police officer?"

"What about her?" she asked, looking at Maggie.

"Does she live alone?"

"No, she's got a roommate, presently."

"All right, I'll have the team make up a nice cell for her."

"One moment, sir," she said. She looked up at Maggie. "Are you sure you don't want to come back home?"

"Danvers, I am not staying in a DEO cell for two weeks."

She nodded. "Mr. Luthor, that won't be necessary, the officer won't be joining me."

"Director, I worked hard to get the governor to agree to bring you both back. This detective… Detective Sawyer… she's been listed as essential personnel. If you don't bring her back, how's that going to look for me? The governor is going to question my leadership, he'll question the police captain listing her as essential. We had to work hard to convince the governor to allow you both to come back. No, Director, I'm afraid I am ordering you to bring the detective back with you."

"Sir, that--"

"I said, that's an order, Director Danvers. Bring her to the DEO or bring her home with you, for all I care. She needs to be back in National City and she needs to be isolated. Whether that's with us or with you, I don't care. Either way, you'll comply or you'll be court-martialed." He ended the call.

"Shit, I fucking hate that asshole," Alex cursed.

"What?" asked Maggie.

"I, uh, I'm under orders to bring you to the DEO."

"So what, you and your si-- uh,  _ Supergirl _ , are going to bring me in against my will, is that it? And you get to relax at home while I rot in a cell?"

Alex sighed. "There's another option. But I don't think you're going to like it."

Kara raised an eyebrow, while Maggie just stared at Alex impassively.

She blew out a breath. "Stay with me for two weeks."

"Excuse me?" Maggie was incredulous.

Alex shook her head. "Believe me, it's not my idea of a good time either," she assured her. "But I need to bring you back to town and if you don't want to stay at the DEO, well, you may as well stay with me."

"You can't be serious, Alex," Kara said.

"For once, I agree with you completely."

"He's going to court-martial me if I don't bring you in. You  _ have  _ to come back to National City."

"No," Maggie argued, "I don't. You have orders, but I still have rights." She shook her head. "Goddamn DEO, taking charge like always."

"Maggie, come on."

"I'm not going," she said, stubbornly. "Supergirl, are you really going to take me against my will? Without a warrant of some kind?"

Kara looked uncomfortable. "I mean… I don't want to, Maggie. I would hope you'd come willingly."

"Seriously? You think I'm going to go back with you, without a warrant to compel me, when my choices are two weeks in a cell without a bathroom or two weeks in the apartment I used to live in with my ex-fiancée?"

Alex couldn't blame her for her reaction.

Kara took a breath. "You could stay with me?" she offered, quietly.

Maggie turned to look at her as though she'd grown a third eye.

Alex shook her head. "No, that wouldn't work," she said, in a low voice. "Kara Danvers isn't immune to this. You'd blow your cover." She turned to Maggie. "Look, if you think staying with me is that bad of a choice, fine, we'll drop you at the DEO, but you  _ are  _ coming back to National City with us. I'm sorry."

"The hell I am."

Maggie's phone rang. She pulled it out of her jacket pocket and answered the call. "Hi Captain," she said. "Yes. Right, no, I'm not… Captain, that would be ridiculous. I'll be fine here. … Captain." She sighed. "Captain, please, could--" She sighed again, her shoulders slumping. "Yes, ma'am. I understand. I'll keep you updated." She ended the call. "Well, Lex apparently called my boss and I am to 'comply fully with the DEO's requests'," she muttered, quoting her instructions.

"So… you'll come back with us?"

Maggie exhaled. "Yeah, looks like it."

"So, uh, are we dropping Maggie off at the DEO?" asked Kara.

"That's up to Maggie," Alex said, honestly not knowing which option she'd choose.

Maggie rubbed her index finger across her chin, in a familiar motion, and sighed. " _ Chez Danvers _ it is, I guess."

Alex forced a smile. She could do this. It would be fine. Hopefully.


	2. Day 1 (continued)

Kara dropped them off on Alex's balcony, to avoid potentially contaminating the building's common areas and flew off to the grocery store, promising to be back soon.

They walked into the apartment and Alex went over to the bedroom area, hoisting her suitcase on to the bed to start unpacking, and placing her laptop bag on it as well. "Uh, you know, make… make yourself at home," she said, wincing, hating how it sounded.

Maggie just sighed. "I'll borrow a pillow from the bed and set up the sofa bed tonight," she said. "Has anyone even used the sofa bed yet?"

Alex shook her head.

"You still have that one set of sheets for it?"

"Yeah, in the closet, second shelf from the top."

"Okay. I'll set it up tonight." She rolled her suitcase into the living area and put it up on the hearth by the fireplace to keep it out of the way.

"Sure," Alex said, lamely. Her phone rang and she looked at it. It was Kelly. She sighed and answered. "Hey."

"Hey, I heard everything's locking down. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. We're being told to stay home."

"That makes sense."

"Are you stuck in Gotham or did you get a flight out?"

"Uh, actually, Supergirl got me just a few minutes ago." She looked over at Maggie who looked back at her, questioningly. "And, uh, while I'm home, which is good, I'm in quarantine… with Maggie."

"Maggie… your ex-fiancée Maggie?"

She swallowed. "Yeah. It's… it's a long story, we were both at the conference and Supergirl got us both because we're essential personnel, but we have to self-isolate."

"For how long?"

Alex scrunched up her face. "Two weeks."

"So you're in quarantine, at your apartment, with your ex… for two weeks."

"Uh, yeah."

"Alex, why? How did this happen?"

"She doesn't live alone, and she can't risk infecting anyone else. Governor's orders."

"Are you telling me the governor told you to bring her home with you?"

"Not exactly," Alex admitted. "It was this or a DEO cell."

Kelly sighed. "I'm not going to give you a hard time about this, Alex," she said, "because I know it must be upsetting to you, too."

"Yeah, that's kind of an understatement." At least Kelly knew how heartbroken she'd been over Maggie. She would also probably understand how awkward it would be.

"Well, I'm just a phone call away. We can get through this, okay, babe?"

"Yeah, okay."

"I love you."

"I love you, too." She hung up and sighed heavily.

"New girlfriend, huh?" Maggie asked, flatly.

She winced. "Yeah. Uh, James' sister, actually. Kelly."

Maggie nodded. "And she doesn't know about Kara?"

Alex shook her head.

Maggie snorted. "I'm sure she's a nice person, but how does  _ anyone  _ not see through that ridiculous disguise?"

"Honestly, I have no idea how it works so well, but it does." She shrugged. "Anyway, she, uh, she seemed to be pretty understanding about this whole…" She gestured vaguely at the room. "...thing."

"So she knows who I am?"

"Yeah." She didn't know what else to say.

Thankfully, Kara returned with a bunch of groceries at that moment, using her super speed to put the groceries away for them. "I also got you rubbing alcohol, plenty of hand soap and some hand sanitizer, too."

"Thanks," she said.

"And, uh, a full case of beer."

"You're right," Alex said, picking up the thread of their text messages from earlier. "I  _ do _ love you."

She smiled.

"Let me know how much I owe you, Kara," Maggie said.

"No, it's fine, it's on me."

"You sure?"

She nodded. "It's the least I could do to help out."

"Thanks," she said.

Kara nodded. "Okay, well, I'm gonna get over to Catco. Let me know if there's anything you need, all right?"

"Thanks, Kara," Alex said.

She stepped out onto the balcony and flew off.

Alex withstood the temptation to get a beer from the fridge. It wasn't even ten in the morning, yet, local time, but it was shaping up to be that kind of a day.

Maggie was pulling her laptop out of her carry-on and carried it with her to the dining area, sitting at the seat closest to the kitchen. It was always where Maggie sat, given a choice, back when she'd lived there.

"Wifi password still the same?"

"Yeah, haven't changed it."

"Cool, yeah, my computer just connected to it without asking me for credentials."

Alex nodded. "Got work to do?"

"Yeah, all that paperwork I always put off." She stood and walked into the kitchen. "I'm gonna make some coffee, if that's all right?"

"Like I said, make yourself at home," she said, the words still sounding awful to her. She walked back up towards her bedroom area to retrieve her own laptop. "Mind making enough for me, too?"

"Sure," Maggie said, preparing the coffee maker.

From the bedroom space, Alex gazed across the apartment to the kitchen. Maggie Sawyer was in her kitchen, making them coffee. She shook her head, trying not to remember the first time it had happened. She failed miserably, picturing Maggie in the orange t-shirt -- and nothing else. She sighed and brought her laptop to the table, sitting at the other end of it.

"Still take honey in your coffee?"

"Please," Alex called back.

"So that stuck, huh?"

"Hm?" she asked, as she attempted to log in to the DEO's network.

"The honey. In the coffee. It stuck." Maggie turned to face her.

"Huh." She blinked. She barely remembered preferring coffee with sugar in it. Maggie had once put honey in her coffee instead and she had to admit it was a lot better. It was a bit healthier, too, since honey spiked glucose less than refined sugar. "I guess it did."

"Well, my work here is done," grinned Maggie. "If all that ever comes from our relationship is that, at least your coffee is marginally less unhealthy than it was before."

She didn't know how to react to that.

"C'mon, Danvers, you gotta be able to take a joke if we're stuck together for two weeks."

She blew out a breath. "You seem to be taking this well, all of a sudden."

Maggie shrugged. "Well, thinking about it, you know, I'm not in a cell at the DEO, so yeah. This seems like a better option. No field rations, real coffee, free access to the bathroom…" She smiled. "Your sister even brought tiramisu."

"That was nice of her," Alex commented.

"It was," Maggie agreed. "So does the situation kind of suck? Yeah. But it's way better than being stuck in a cell."

Alex nodded. "Is…" She exhaled again. "Is it weird for you?"

Maggie scoffed. "Yeah. I honestly never thought I'd be back in this apartment."

"Me either," she said, quietly.

"So hey, thank you for letting me, you know, ruin your life for a couple of weeks," she smiled.

"You're not ruining my life."

"Putting a damper on your love life, then."

Alex considered and pursed her lips. "Okay, I'll give you that." She considered. "And, uh, am I putting a damper on yours?"

"Nope," she said. "Not seeing anyone right now."

She nodded. "Gotcha."

This was quickly moving into awkward territory.

"Look, Alex," Maggie said, "we lived here together for what, nine months?"

"Officially, it was like, six, but yeah, considering how much time we spent here before you moved in officially? Yeah, nine or ten months."

"Right, so almost a year. And we did it without killing each other. We can do two weeks."

She nodded. "You're right."

"Of course I'm right," she grinned.

Maggie brought out the coffee and both of them sank into their work for the next couple of hours.

For a little while, at least, it was like the old days. True, they never deliberately sat this far away from each other in the old days, but it was nice and quiet and… comforting, if Alex was being honest.

It was almost one when Alex's stomach rumbled. She closed the lid of her laptop. "Hungry?"

Maggie nodded.

"Let's see what Kara got us," Alex said, getting up and stretching before heading to the fridge.

"I mean, there's always the ti--"

"You are  _ not  _ having tiramisu for every meal until it's gone," Alex said, without batting an eyelash as she opened the fridge door.

Maggie didn't respond, but Alex could almost  _ feel _ her pouting. She allowed herself a small smile.

"Looks like we have sandwich stuff. Sliced ham, turkey, roast beef." She straightened and turned to face Maggie. "Sound good?"

"Well, the smoke alarm won't go off, so yeah." Her eyes twinkled and one of her dimples appeared.

"Listen, I have many skills, but using the stove or oven without adult supervision is not one of them." She started pulling out the cold cuts and assorted other sandwich things.

"At least you acknowledge your weaknesses," Maggie noted. "This girl I dated a few months ago was a very different story."

"Yeah?" She meant it to sound casual, but she wasn't really sure she wanted to hear about any part of Maggie's dating life. Obviously Maggie had dated after her, had kissed people after her, had slept with people after her, but Alex didn't want to hear about it. Was that fair of her? No, she acknowledged, given her own history and her present relationship. She didn't care if it was fair or not, though.

"Yeah, she wasn't good at accepting she wasn't good at something."

"That's not so bad," Alex said, pulling the sliced bread out and adding some mayo and mustard to a few different slices. "It means that she's persistent, so she can improve, right?"

Maggie snorted. "Okay, maybe, if she didn't just blame everything on circumstance."

"What do you mean?"

"So, one night, we were playing pool and I won."

Alex turned around, raising an eyebrow. "You won a game of pool?"

"I know, that's how bad she was."

"Oh boy." She turned back to the sandwiches.

"But it wasn't that she was bad, she said. It was the cue, it was just warped. No, it was that the table was slanted. Or it was that the felt was too fuzzy, or too bare. Or that the ball wasn't perfectly round."

"Oh, one of  _ those _ ," Alex chuckled. She turned around again. "Let me guess, that lasted… maybe eight days."

"Close," Maggie said. "It would have been about that, but she was a lot better in bed than she was at playing pool, so it lasted a couple weeks."

"Ah," she smiled and turned back. She sliced through the tomato a little harshly.

"Sorry, a bit too much information there, Danvers?"

She shrugged, grateful that Maggie couldn't see her face.

"It's tricky," Maggie said, moving from the table, over to the counter and sitting on a stool.

"What is? Sex?" she tried to joke.

"Ha, ha," she said, drily. "No, the… balance, I guess. Between us."

Alex nodded, focusing on slicing the cheese.

"Like, what's off-limits? What isn't?"

"We could probably come up with some ground rules," Alex said, letting all sorts of forbidden topics flip to the front of her mind, topics she didn't particularly want to discuss.

"Do we need to?"

Alex shrugged again, assembling the sandwiches. "Up to you." She placed Maggie's sandwich on a plate and sliced it diagonally, just like she liked it, and turned to serve it to her.

"Thanks," she said, pulling the plate towards her.

"Sure. Drink?"

"Water would be great, thanks."

Alex got a glass and filled it with water from the fridge's dispenser and placed it in front of Maggie before going back to assemble her own sandwich.

"I don't think we need rules," Maggie said, around a mouthful. She swallowed. "I mean, that's just not organic, you know?"

Alex gave a soft snort.

"What?"

She turned. "Like anything about this situation is  _ organic _ ," she said, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the counter.

"So what, you want to go over some rules and decide what we can and can't talk about together for two weeks?"

"Maybe," she said, turning back around and finishing the assembly of her sandwich. She could feel Maggie judging her.

"I guess I don't get it."

"What?"

"Why you're the one who wants rules. I'm the one who got dumped."

Alex sighed, her shoulders slumping.

"Sorry, but it's true."

"I know it's true," she said, turning back around, with her plate. She put it on the center counter and got herself a glass of water, too. "That doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt me too, Maggie," she said, quietly.

"It does?" She sounded surprised.

"Of course it does," she retorted, almost angry. "I asked you to  _ marry  _ me."

"I know, Danvers, I was there," she shot back.

Alex absorbed the words, as though she were absorbing a bullet in her vest. Her heart ached. "I kind of thought, you know, we'd be together forever." She immediately regretted the words. She had been too open, too honest, and she was leaving herself open to some kind of biting remark from her ex.

There was a pause. "Me too," Maggie replied, quietly, matching Alex's honesty with her own.

She exhaled, forcing herself to relax a bit. "So yeah, that it didn't work out like that hurts, okay? Still."

Maggie nodded. "Sorry," she said. "It just seems like, you know, you're happy. New job, new girlfriend."

She sighed. "I  _ am _ happy. But it still hurts. Both can be true. Okay?"

"Okay."

She blew out a breath. This was going to take some work.

They ate mostly in silence after that, before returning to their laptops and focusing on work. Alex was reviewing new applicants to the DEO and it was mind-numbing, so she asked Maggie if she'd mind some background music.

"Barenaked Ladies?"

"That's what I was thinking," Alex smiled. She started up Spotify and selected the living room's speakers. Soon, Rock Spectacle, the band's live album, was playing.

Once again, it was almost like old times. She wondered if this was what the next two weeks would be like, where one moment, it felt like they were still together and the next, it would be abundantly clear that they weren't.

Three Barenaked Ladies albums later, Maggie went to the kitchen. "Pasta?" she asked, looking through the cupboards at what Kara had brought.

"Yeah, that works," Alex said.

"Tomato sauce? I can make a bolognese sauce tomorrow."

"Sure." She looked up from the table. "You don't have to do this, you know."

"Do you want to live on sandwiches for the next while?"

"Not particularly."

Maggie shrugged. "Me either. So I may as well make dinner."

"Thank you," she said, genuinely. With that, she closed the lid of her laptop and brought it to the counter to charge it. "Can I put your laptop away?"

"Sure, thanks."

She returned to the table and closed Maggie's laptop, plugging it into an outlet at the counter.

She glanced at the clock. It was nearly seven. She walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. "Beer?" she asked.

"Please."

She pulled two bottles out from the case Kara had bought and popped their caps before handing one to Maggie.

"To quarantine," her ex joked, the bottle extended towards her.

She gave a weak laugh. "To quarantine." She clinked the neck of her bottle against Maggie's and then took a long drink.

Apart from an awkward moment as Alex unconsciously put her hand on the small of Maggie's back while navigating through the kitchen, dinner went well. Afterwards, Maggie had elected to take a shower while Alex offered to clean up, so she put in her headphones and called Kelly.

"Hey," her girlfriend said. "How are you doing?"

"As well as can be expected," she said, scrubbing a dish. "It's so weird."

"I can only imagine. Are you holding up okay?"

"Well, we haven't killed each other yet."

"That's a positive," Kelly said.

"But it's also been less than twelve hours." She blew out a breath. "I've been in some pretty weird situations in my life, Kelly, but this is one of the weirdest."

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm sure she feels the same way."

Alex nodded. "Yeah, I think that's true." She sighed. "Anyway. How are you?"

"Good. Trying to get some paperwork done."

"That's what it's been like here," she said. "All paperwork, all day." She put a dish into the dishrack. "I'm worried about what happens when we get through all our paperwork."

She chuckled. "Is that an actual possibility? As long as I've known you, you've tried really hard not to do your paperwork."

"I mean, it's theoretically possible," she grinned. "But seriously, what happens if we do finish our paperwork? We'd sit here, trapped together? And what? Read books? Play games? As though I didn't break her heart? As though that relationship didn't change my entire life?"

"Alex, listen, you're worrying for nothing," she said, calmly. "You're catastrophizing. And, like you said, it's been less than twelve hours. So just take a deep breath or three and tell yourself it'll be all right."

She took a deep breath, feeling better on the exhale. "Yeah, okay, I can do that."

"And I'm here, okay? Text me, call me, anything. Anytime."

"Thanks," she said. "And the same goes for you."

"I love you, Alex. Text me before bed?"

"Sure. Love you too."

"Bye."

She disconnected and placed the pots in the sink to soak while she dried the dishes.

Maggie came out of the bathroom, changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt, her hair still damp. She put her folded clothing into her suitcase before heading up to the closet by the bed. Alex returned her attention to the dishes as Maggie found the sheets for the sofa bed and started pulling the pillows off the couch to pull out the bed and make it.

They did it all in silence. It wasn't exactly the  _ comfortable  _ kind of silence, but it wasn't exactly a strained one. They just had nothing to say to one another.

Once Maggie had gotten the bed made, she folded the bed up again and replaced the pillows, then fetched a single pillow from the bed. From what had been  _ her _ side of the bed. Alex finished drying the last pot and put it away while Maggie put the pillow on the armchair, for later use.

She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just past eight-thirty. She blew out a breath. It was going to be a long evening.

"Want to watch something?" she ventured.

"Sure," Maggie responded, coming back to the kitchen to get another beer. "What show are you woefully behind on these days?"

She laughed, because it was true. Some things hadn't changed. "The Good Place," she answered.

"That is such a great show. Where are you at in it?"

"Uh…" She thought about it. "I think I finished Season 2."

"Cool, I'd be down to watch a bit," she said. "The only thing I don't like is the lack of an overtly queer character."

Alex grabbed a beer for herself and popped the cap off with the bottle opener and handed it to Maggie who did the same. "Is there a… subtle queer character in the show?" Alex asked.

"Well, I mean, there's Eleanor," Maggie said, walking to the couch.

She frowned. "Eleanor?"

"Yeah."

"How is Eleanor queer?" Alex sat down on the far side of the couch from Maggie.

"She's bisexual."

Alex looked at Maggie, her brow furrowed. "What?"

"Or pan. I mean, it's not explicit, but it's there."

"Is this you just seeing queer stuff because you want to?" Alex asked, suspiciously. Maggie was always pointing out that something or another was super gay, when Alex wasn't entirely sure it was.

"No, I swear. There's this one reboot of the neighbourhood where Eleanor's soulmate is Tahani."

"Right, but that was a joke," she argued, remembering laughing at the moment.

"Maybe. But think about it. If they lived through that reboot for any amount of time, Eleanor and Tahani were soulmates and were probably sleeping together. At the very least, both of them accepted it as a viable possibility. So Tahani is probably some measure of queer as well."

"I can't believe I forgot about your thing with making everything gay," Alex chuckled, turning on the television.

"Go ahead, make fun of me," she said, "like you always do."

Alex absorbed the swipe at her. "I'm just saying that Eleanor seems pretty straight to me."

"When you grow up gay, and there's not a lot of role models for you on television, it becomes important to you, okay?" Maggie sipped at her beer. "Just… watch for it. I promise, you'll see it if you're looking for it."

"But will I see it because it's  _ there  _ or will I see it because I'm  _ looking  _ for it and I'm misinterpreting things?" Alex countered, feeling as though she was on the verge of victory.

"Ah, and there's the question," Maggie said, turning to face her more directly. "Whose fault is it if a message is misinterpreted?"

Alex blinked. "The interpreter's?

"Wrong, it's the sender's. At least according to semiotics theory." She sipped at her beer again. "So there was this theorist, Stuart Hall, who had this audience reception theory. It says that the  _ producer _ , or the  _ sender _ of a message, of media, of a text, is the one encoding it."

"Encoding?" Alex blinked. "What, like cryptography?"

"You are  _ such _ a nerd," chuckled Maggie. "No, like… tailoring your speech to your audience. If you were going to talk to me about, say, Supergirl, you'd just talk about Kara. But if you were going to talk to Kelly about Supergirl…"

"... I'd talk about Supergirl. Okay. With you." She didn't particularly like the example, but acknowledged it made sense.

"Right. So the sender of the message encodes the message, or the media, or the text, with their ideas, their values, what makes sense to them."

"Okay."

"And the receiver then has to decode that message or text with their own ideas and values."

"So?"

"So if the sender and the receiver have different ideas and values, it's on the  _ sender _ to make sure their message is properly understood."

Alex sipped at her beer while mulling the ideas over. "So if I was talking about Kara saving someone, and I told Kelly that  _ Kara _ had saved someone from getting hit by a car, she would think that my sister pulled someone out of harm's way. But if I told Kelly that  _ Supergirl _ had saved someone from getting hit, she might think of Supergirl flying in to lift the person to safety."

"Exactly. And because you're the sender of that message, it's on you to make sure it's properly encoded," Maggie said.

Alex thought about it. "Okay, so you're saying that even if we misinterpret Eleanor as being bisexual or some other flavour of queer, that it's not our fault, it's the writers' fault?"

"Exactly," she nodded. "They have to encode their text in a way that makes their message make sense to the viewer. So even if Tahani being Eleanor's soulmate for a reboot is a joke, whose fault is it that we take that to mean Eleanor is queer?"

It clicked for Alex. "Ohhh, it's theirs, because they  _ included _ that. As part of the overall message. Right?"

"Right. If they didn't want us to think Eleanor or Tahani were queer, they shouldn't have included that scene."

"Huh, okay, that makes sense." She paused and looked at Maggie. "And you call  _ me _ a nerd."

Maggie laughed and Alex turned back to the television to get started on Season 3 of The Good Place. She smiled. Maybe, if their evenings had more conversations like that, she wouldn't actually lose her mind after all.

After three episodes, Alex was ready to turn in, but Maggie convinced her to watch the fourth episode, "Jeremy Bearimy", promising her it was one of the best episodes of the entire series.

Once it ended, Alex was still laughing. "The dot, over the i. That broke me," she said, quoting Chidi.

"Right?"

"Oh god, and the peeps and the chili!"

"This is honestly the best show," she said, "despite no overt queer characters."

Alex was still chuckling. "It really is." She smiled and looked at her watch. It was almost eleven. "All right, I should get some sleep, I guess."

Maggie nodded. "You mind if I watch something? I'll keep the volume low."

"Yeah, sure," she said, "no problem."

"Thanks."

She got up from the couch and grabbed her pajamas from the closet before going to the bathroom. There, on the floor, was Maggie's towel. She sighed. Back when they'd been together, she'd broken Maggie of the bad habit. Apparently, hanging up her towel wasn't a habit that had stuck. She hung it up. Then, she used the facilities, changed, washed her face and brushed her teeth. It was weird, she acknowledged. She didn't usually change in here, nor did she usually have the door closed. Not even when Kelly was around, not when she was alone and not when Maggie had lived here. To close the bathroom door was definitely weird and, she figured, just one of many small adjustments she'd have to make over the next two weeks.

She came out of the bathroom to see Maggie had pulled the sofa bed out and was curled up under a sheet and a blanket, with the TV on low. She'd turned out the living room and kitchen lights, so the only other source of light was Alex's bedside lamp.

"Goodnight," she said, passing her on her way to her bed.

"G'night, Danvers."

Alex crawled into bed and texted Kelly to say goodnight before turning off the light. As she lay there, twenty or so feet away from her ex-fiancée, she mused that maybe the next two weeks wouldn't be too bad.


	3. Day 2

Alex woke up before Maggie and quietly took a shower. It was only afterwards, when she was making coffee, that Maggie stirred.

"Morning," she said, from the kitchen.

"Mmph," murmured Maggie.

To be fair, Maggie wasn't exactly the early-bird type. And, checking the time, it was only about seven in the morning.

Alex felt bad for saying anything, but had assumed Maggie was waking up. What if she'd just been rolling over?

Then Maggie's phone alarm went off. "Ugh," she said, slapping at her phone to quiet it. "So it wasn't a dream," she said, a moment later.

"Nope," Alex confirmed. At the same time, she felt something hovering in the back of her mind. Her own, half-forgotten dream, she thought, but every time she reached for it, it pulled further away. It would come to her eventually. Or not.

"Great," Maggie said. She exhaled and sat up, rubbing at her face. "Gotta say, that's not uncomfortable, as far as sofa beds go."

"Huh, glad to hear that," Alex said. It was legitimately the only time it had been used. "Coffee?"

"Please."

Alex poured her a cup and put it on the counter for her, then poured her own.

She watched as Maggie got out of bed, hair mussed, eyes still half-closed. Maggie pulled the blanket and sheet up and folded the bed into the sofa, before putting the cushions back on it.

Alex could feel the telltale pinprick of tears behind her eyes. Looking at the scene in the apartment, it could have been three years ago. Early-morning Maggie was standing in her living room, while she was in the kitchen, making coffee.

She swallowed. Early-morning Maggie had been one of her favourite Maggies. There was just something about how she looked so soft and young and open and sweet in the mornings. Alex tore her eyes from her ex and focused on the coffee. It would pass. Maggie would have the coffee and she'd wake up and then wash her face and get dressed and she wouldn't be early-morning Maggie anymore. And then it would be okay.

***

They got through the second day much the same way as they got through the first, by immersing themselves in their work. Alex had a video call with Lex and Brainy, at one point, while Maggie tried her best to help out her department with a case involving a Phorian.

Around four, Maggie got up and started pulling out ingredients for her bolognese sauce. Alex sat back and watched. It had been actual years since she'd had it. She'd tried to make it since, to no avail, despite still having the cookbook the recipe came from.

"Thank you," she said.

"For what?"

"Making sure we don't starve," Alex smiled.

She shrugged. "Does Kelly cook?"

Alex shook her head. "We mostly order in or eat out."

"Gotcha." She paused. "Have you even  _ had  _ this sauce since…?"

"Nope. I did try, like, three times, though."

"Well, you want to learn?"

"Sure." She got up and joined Maggie in the kitchen.

"Okay, the ingredients are the same as in the cookbook. Where do you normally run into trouble?"

"The, uh, the smoke detector," she said, sheepishly.

Maggie chuckled. "So browning the meat?"

"Oh, that's definitely a problem. Usually burn it."

"Got it." Maggie added some oil to the large pot. "You need to make sure the oil covers the entire bottom of the pot," she said, holding it at one angle, then another, to get the oil everywhere. "Then I like to add a bit of garlic powder and start it up on low heat."

"Okay."

"Once the garlic powder has browned a bit, you can put in the ground beef. And you've got to keep an eye on it and keep it moving to prevent it from burning. Once burnt, even a little, it'll make everything else taste like that."

"Ohhh," Alex nodded. "Yeah, that happened once."

"Right, so just dump it in, bring the heat up to medium, then break it up with your spatula and keep moving it around." She followed her own directions. "Here, you keep that up, I'm going to chop the onions."

Alex took the handle of the spatula and let Maggie get past her to get the chef's knife to chop up the onion, careful to keep the meat browning and not burning.

Once done with the onion, Maggie came back to the stove, pressing up against Alex's left side, and peered into the pot. "Good, good," she said. "You see how there's no more pink? That's what we're looking for, even if the meat is a light brown and not a darker brown. Just the absence of pink."

"Okay," said Alex, but she was barely listening. Having Maggie so close to her had given her a whiff of Maggie's scent. In turn, that had brought her dream she'd been chasing all day to the surface. In the span of a moment, she was flooded with images of the two of them joking and laughing easily, as though they were still together. Sitting on the couch, limbs entwined. Curled up in bed together.

"Now, bring the heat down to the lower limit of medium," Maggie instructed.

"Hm?" She shook herself out of her memory of the dream.

"Set the heat to a low medium before it burns."

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure." Alex did so and then Maggie tossed in the diced onions.

"Stir that up, mix them together to get that oniony flavour into the meat. We want the onions to sautée just a bit with the heat, but then we want to caramelize them."

"Okay," she said, still not paying full attention to the task at hand.

"Meanwhile, I'm going to get the tomato paste and tomato sauce ready."

Alex nodded, moving the bits of food around, trying not to let anything get too brown. She forced herself to concentrate on her task.

"Great," Maggie said, looking into the pot again, again entering Alex's personal space. "Okay, now the paste." She dumped the entire small can into the pot, scraping it out with a spoon, then added some water to the mixture. "And now the tomato sauce," she said, pouring in the contents of another can. "And a teaspoon of sugar to reduce the acidity of the tomatoes," she said, adding a healthy teaspoon of it to the mix. "Now stir."

Alex did.

"And that's it. In about two or three hours from now, once it's reduced to less than half its volume, we'll have a nice sauce. We'll want to stir every 20-30 minutes or so and adjust the heat if it's getting too hot."

"That seems way too simple," Alex said, certain they were missing a magical step along the way.

"That's really all there is to it. I still have trouble understanding how you, someone with an MD  _ and  _ a PhD, who obviously had to go through tons of chemistry classes, are unable to follow a simple recipe."

She laughed. "Look, I was busy brooding in my room about having an alien sister and not understanding my feelings for Vicki Donahue while you were learning how to cook from your abuela or your tia."

"I guess that's fair. I did spend a lot of time in kitchens as I grew up," she answered, grinning.

"Well, it shows, and I'm grateful for it," she smiled.

"Yeah?"

"Of course. Now and… and, uh, then. Thank you," she said, sincerely.

"You're welcome."

With that, Maggie headed back to her laptop and Alex slowly let out a breath. It was a weird dynamic. It was both comfortable and awkward to be around her. As they'd shared the space in the kitchen, it had been really hard not to reach out an arm to put around her waist, or not to drop a kiss on Maggie's shoulder. It had gotten worse as she'd remembered her dream. It was as though her body had its own ideas as to how to act around Maggie. All of those unconscious movements, those intimate touches that would just  _ happen  _ while in proximity to one another, they had come back to her. Like the day before when she'd put her hand on Maggie's back for a moment as she moved around her. Alex found that she had to force herself not to act. Her brain knew it would be wildly inappropriate, but her body didn't. It was still perfectly natural for her body. It was yet another adjustment she'd have to make. She hadn't spent any amount of time with Maggie in person since they'd broken up, so it was a matter of retraining her body to try not to react to Maggie's closeness.

She sighed and got herself a drink of water. Just one more thing on a seemingly never-ending list of things not to do or say. And if she could get her brain to stop dreaming inappropriately, that would be great, too.

***

"That was delicious, thank you," Alex said, as she finished the last bite of her pasta.

"Glad you enjoyed it. We should freeze the sauce once it's cooled down."

She nodded, wiping her mouth with her napkin. "Good idea." She stood and took her plate as well as Maggie's into the kitchen, when the lights went out.

"Uh, oh," Maggie said.

"Shit." Alex put the dishes in the sink and opened up the door to her balcony and stepped outside to look around. The lights were out for a couple of blocks. She pulled out her phone and headed to the power company's website to report the outage, noting she was now on her cellular data and no longer on the apartment's wifi.

As the page loaded, she came back inside. "Everything's dark for at least two or three blocks."

"Great." The single word was loaded with sarcasm.

Alex smiled and looked back at her phone and typed in her address. The results came up quickly. "And… the estimated time of restoration is in three hours."

Maggie sighed. "Well, I guess we should get out the candles and stuff."

She nodded, closing the door to the balcony. It was almost eight, so it was pretty dark already. She turned on the flashlight function on her phone to cast a bit of light in the apartment and pulled some matches from a kitchen drawer while Maggie brought three candles over from the living room.

Alex lit the candles. "I have two big ones over on my nightstand," she said.

Maggie nodded and went to fetch them as Alex went to the storage closet by the door and grabbed another candle from there.

All told, they had six pretty large candles that would keep burning for quite some time.

Alex blew out a breath. "Well, I guess I'll get started on the dishes."

"I'll help."

"You made dinner, you know the rules. Whoever makes dinner doesn't clean up."

Maggie smiled at her in the candlelight. "What else am I going to do? Internet's down, my phone's at like, 12%..."

Alex nodded. "All right, grab a dishtowel." She walked over to the living room and pulled a tablet out from the storage portion of the coffee table and came back. "This should at least give us some entertainment," she said. "I've got some albums downloaded." She set up the tablet on the counter and hit shuffle play on Barenaked Ladies' Maroon album.

"Sweet," Maggie said, pulling a dishtowel out of a drawer and flipping it over her shoulder.

_ Pinch Me _ started up and Alex plugged the sink, added dish soap and started the hot water.

"It's the perfect time of year, somewhere far away from here. I feel fine enough, I guess, considering everything's a mess," Maggie sang. She didn't sing often, and would claim she wasn't very good, but, back in the day, they'd often sing together while doing chores.

"There's a restaurant down the street, where hungry people like to eat. I can walk but I'll just drive. It's colder than it looks outside," she chimed in.

"It's like a dream you try to remember but it's gone, then ya try to scream but it only comes out as a yawn, when ya try to see the world beyond your front door," they sang together, Alex harmonizing.

"Take your time 'cause the way I rhyme's gonna make you smile, when you realize that a guy my size might take a while, just to try to figure out what all this is for."

Alex smiled as the song continued. "It's been a long time since I've sung along to Barenaked Ladies," she admitted.

"Yeah? Kelly not a fan?"

She shook her head. "Not really, but I also haven't listened to them a lot, uh, in the last while," she said, turning back to the sink and shutting off the water. She started scrubbing a dish.

"I haven't listened to them much either."

"Really?" Alex was surprised. Maggie had always been the bigger fan out of the two of them.

"Really. Lots of memories."

She nodded. "I get it." She paused and turned. "If you don't want to listen to them, we don't have to. I just put them on because…" She trailed off.

"No, no, it's been nice," she said, "listening to them these last couple of days. With you."

Alex quirked a smile and went back to scrubbing. "Yeah," she said, nodding in agreement. She put a dish into the rack, as the chorus to the song came back up. Again, she was hit with the feeling that it was weird, yet still normal, to be doing this, now, with Maggie.

She kept scrubbing and, soon enough, the dishes were done.

"What do we do with the sauce?" she asked, draining the sink.

"We should probably leave it until either we go to bed or the power comes back. We don't want to put it into the freezer while it's still warm, not when the freezer isn't going to be able to cool it down."

She nodded, taking the dish towel from Maggie and drying her hands before hanging it on the oven's handle. "So, what do you want to do?"

Maggie shrugged. "Want to play a game or something?"

"I don't really have much here," she said. "Most games are at Kara's for--"

"Game night, right, I remember."

She nodded.

"Still got a deck of cards?"

"Probably." She moved over to the drawers by the door and opened a couple of them, fumbling through them before she found a deck. "Here we go." They'd played cards, a couple of times, early on in their relationship, but it had been a figurative lifetime ago. Alex doubted she'd used the cards since.

"Great," Maggie said, moving two of the candles to the dining room table.

Alex came over to the table and sat down across from Maggie and counted the cards. "Hey, there's even 52 cards!" she grinned.

"Perfect," Maggie said, reaching out for the cards.

Alex put the deck in her hand and headed to the kitchen. "Want a beer?"

"Sure."

Alex quickly grabbed two beers from the fridge and closed it as quickly as she could, to prevent the cold from escaping. She popped the caps off and headed back to the table, placing one bottle by Maggie.

"So what are we playing? Thirty-One? War? Rummy?"

Maggie grinned. "How about Spit?"

"Oh, man," Alex said, "It's been at  _ least  _ a decade since I last played. I barely remember how."

"Good."

As Maggie shuffled, Alex's phone rang.

"One sec," she said, pulling it out of her pocket. It was Kelly. "Hey," she said, answering.

"Hey, sweetheart. How was your day? I didn't hear much from you."

"Pretty uneventful," she said, "until the power went out about twenty minutes ago."

"Oh no, I'm sorry."

"It's okay, we're just about to play cards."

"I didn't know you played cards."

"I don't, really. I mean, I know how to play solitaire and I always liked Freecell on the computer, but I've never been much of a card player," she babbled.

"And I'm hoping to use that to my advantage!" Maggie called.

Alex shot her a look, but Kelly chuckled. "Well, I hope you have fun. Text me before bed?"

"Sure thing," she said.

"Love you."

"Love you too."

She disconnected and set her phone down.

"Sorry," Maggie said, starting to deal the cards. "I didn't mean to make things awkward."

"She laughed, it's fine," Alex said. "So, remind me, how do we play?"

"Okay, the goal is to get rid of all your cards. You set them up like this," she said, starting five piles of cards in front of her. "So just deal one card face-up and the next four face-down and so on, until you have fifteen cards dealt. If you have any doubles, you can put them on top of each other and flip over one of the cards beneath. And any time you reveal a new card, you can flip it over."

She nodded, mirroring Maggie's actions.

"Now, when we're ready to start, we'll each turn over the top card of our remaining cards and put it in the middle. You can then build off those. So, okay, you have an 8 and a 9 showing, so if we flip over a 7, you can put the 8 and the 9 on, or if we get a 10, you can then put the 9 and then the 8."

"Oh, okay, got it," she said, the instructions triggering a memory. "I think the last time I probably played this was as a kid against Kara."

"Totally unfair," Maggie commented, "what with the super speed."

"Right?? I think that's when we started playing Battleship and I started cheating."

Maggie looked over at her. "Define cheating at Battleship."

Alex shrugged. "I might have, sometimes, stacked the ships on top of each other," she admitted, smiling.

"Wow, I guess it runs in the family."

"What do you mean?"

"Super _ girl _ and Super _ cheater _ ."

Alex made a face. "Hey,  _ you  _ try losing every game to your alien sister and then see if you don't start cheating out of desperation."

"I imagine it's a lot like repeatedly losing games of pool," she commented, drily.

Alex laughed. "I guess it is," she admitted. She paused. "Wait. Are you implying that you've cheated while playing pool with me?"

Maggie grinned cryptically. "Okay, so back to the game…"

"No, no, hang on!"

She looked up at her innocently.

"Maggie Sawyer, you totally cheated at pool!"

"I can neither confirm nor deny your accusations, Danvers."

She frowned. "Why not?"

"Because, hypothetically speaking, if I had cheated, I might have enlisted your sister to help."

She narrowed her eyes. "Ooh, you are in so much trouble." The words had come out, unbidden. In the old days, it would have meant something else entirely.

If Maggie had remembered that the phrase used to mean something else, she didn't react. She smiled brilliantly, her dimples visible even in the dim light. "Okay, so, Spit! We keep adding cards to either pile until we can't any longer, then we turn over another card. Remember that aces link to both kings as well as twos. Once you're out of cards from your stacks, hit the smallest pile in the middle. That pile becomes your new deck. First one to get rid of all their cards wins."

"Okay," Alex said. "Let's do it."

Maggie won the first round easily, but Alex, having had the opportunity to study the game, did pretty well in the second round.

Four rounds later, the two women were playing at full speed. Alex finished her stacks and smashed her hand down on the smallest pile on the table, only for Maggie to slam her hand down on Alex's.

"Ooh, sorry," Maggie said, pulling back.

Alex gently rubbed the back of her hand. "That stings."

"One of the hazards of the game," Maggie said. "Sorry, didn't mean to hurt you."

"It's fine, I'll live," she said, as the Barenaked Ladies started in on  _ Falling for the First Time _ .

Maggie ended up winning the first game, but Alex won the second.

"Wanna make it interesting?" Maggie asked.

Alex was intrigued. "How so?"

"Flash grenade for me if I win the next game."

Alex laughed. "Oh my God, I can't believe you  _ still _ want a flash grenade!"

"I  _ really  _ want one, Danvers. And, as director, you can actually get me one these days."

She snorted. "And what if I win?"

"What do you want?"

Unbidden, a single word formed in her mind.  _ You _ . She cleared her throat and chalked it up to old conversational habits, to Maggie's proximity, to having been so intimate for so long. Of course it didn't mean anything. She was happy. She had moved on.

"Well?"

"Can't think of anything I want," she said, finally.

"That's no fun," she commented, shuffling the cards.

She shrugged.

"A hundred bucks?"

"Versus a  _ flash grenade _ ? Maggie, do you know the actual cost of one of those things?"

"Fine, fine, no flash grenade," she said. "I bet you a night of sleeping in the bed."

Alex snorted. "And what makes you think I would give up what's already mine?"

"So you're scared of losing. All right, that's fine."

She scoffed. "No!" She'd meant for it to come out a little more forceful, but it sounded much less certain than she'd intended.

"Prove it," Maggie challenged.

"You just don't have anything I want!" she argued.

"One night in the bed for me if I win and, if I lose, I'll do a week of laundry."

Alex paused. Things just got interesting. "Huh."

Maggie grinned. "I know you hate doing it. Admit it. You're tempted."

"Fine," she said, sticking out her hand. "If you win, you get the bed for a night. If I win, you do laundry for a week."

"Deal," Maggie said, shaking Alex's hand firmly, her eyes twinkling at Alex in the candlelight.

Twenty minutes later, after a valiant effort, Alex had lost to Maggie by not hitting the last pile in the center quickly enough. She sighed. "You want the bed tonight or do you want to save it for another night?"

Maggie laughed. "I'll save it for another night," she said. "You can sleep in the bed tonight to get over your crushing defeat."

"Excuse me, that was hardly a crushing defeat!"

"You lost, I won."

"That qualifies as a defeat, but not crushing."

"I had like six cards left that last round. That means you had 46! That's  _ the definition  _ of a crushing defeat."

Alex sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine," she acknowledged, wishing there was a way to cheat at Spit.

"Bet you're glad I backed down on the flash grenade, huh?" Her dimples were showing.

"Very," Alex confirmed. The conversation seemed to just stop awkwardly. What else was there to say? To do? It was barely nine in the evening. What would they have done, back in the old days? They'd have chatted quietly, maybe. Or maybe they would have taken a candlelit bath together. They definitely would have gone to bed a bit early. Out of that list, the only thing they realistically could do right now was talk. And Alex wasn't sure she even wanted to talk to Maggie. There were so many things  _ not _ to talk about that it was hard to avoid them all the time.

"Penny for your thoughts, Danvers," Maggie said, easily shuffling the cards.

She looked up, her eyes wide. "Uh." She cleared her throat. "Uh, nothing, really."

Maggie raised an eyebrow at her. "Sure, I believe you."

She rolled her eyes. "I… I was just thinking about what we would have done, you know, back then."

Maggie nodded. "Thought so. Gotta say, it's been a while since I've had a bath by candlelight."

Alex squeezed her eyes shut. "Not helping."

She chuckled. "Why don't you take a bath and I'll just read my book here?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Alex, you don't need to like… entertain me. I'm perfectly capable of entertaining myself even without electronic devices for an hour or two."

Alex thought about it. It did sound like a good idea. Nice and relaxing, even if she'd showered that morning.

"You could even bring your phone in there and video chat with Kelly," Maggie said with a grin, as she stood up and went to get her book.

She flushed a bright red, grateful the other woman couldn't see it. "Oh, uh, no, uh, that…" She shook her head. "That's, uh, that's fine."

From the other side of the room, Maggie snorted. "I'm offering you some intimate time with your girlfriend, Alex. You should take me up on it."

The very notion that Maggie would be in the next room while… She shook her head again, her face still hot. "Thanks, but, uh… no. That would just be way too weird."

Maggie returned to the table with her paperback in hand. "All right, just offering," she smiled. "I mean, we're adults, right?"

Alex Danvers was pretty sure she would never be able to be as mature and adult about things as Maggie. She shook her head. "Yeah, no, I'm gonna pass on that. Besides, it's just two weeks."

"Suit yourself," she said, sitting down and flipping through the pages to find her spot.

She stood and collected her pajamas and towel and brought them into the pitch-black bathroom. She started running the bath and came back out to get herself a candle before returning to the bathroom.

As she shut the door, she let out a breath. The idea was just too weird. The whole  _ situation _ was too weird.

After an hour or so in the bath, trying to relax, trying to stop thinking for five minutes, and mostly failing, she got out and wrapped her towel around her torso. As the tub drained, Alex wondered how on earth she and Maggie were going to survive the next twelve days together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cheating at Battleship is a shoutout to Zipps' reference in Chapter 2 of [Love is Blind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23159653/chapters/55430104).
> 
> The end of this chapter marks a switch in perspective and, starting with the next, I'll spend a couple chapters from Maggie's point of view, then back to Alex, back to Maggie, and so on.


	4. Day 3

_ Twelve more days.  _ It was the first thought as she slowly woke up. She cracked her eyelid and looked at her watch. It was just before seven. She took a deep breath and could smell the coffee brewing. She held back the sigh and braced herself as she sat up in bed.

"Morning," Alex called from the other side of the room.

"Morning," she croaked. She still couldn't understand how this was happening, how she was trapped in her former home, with her ex-fiancée. She didn't believe in any kind of a god or cosmic forces or any of that stuff, but if she did, she'd be wondering what the hell she'd done to deserve this kind of torture. She got out of the sofa bed and padded to the bathroom. Once she'd used the facilities, she came back out into the apartment and headed to the kitchen where Alex had poured her a cup of coffee and had put a sesame seed bagel, dry, double-toasted, on a plate on the counter.

"Thanks," she said, taking the plate and mug over to the dining area to join Alex.

"Sure," Alex said. "It's the least I can do."

"When did the power come back?" she asked.

"My clock was about five hours off when I woke up a while ago, so it looks like it was around 1:30 or so."

She nodded. "Did you put--"

"Yes, I put the sauce in the freezer first thing," she said.

Another nod. "Good." She took a bite of the bagel and got up to get her phone. She'd plugged it in before going to bed and it was fully charged. She came back to her seat and scrolled through her emails. It was mostly work stuff, it looked like. She reached out for her mug and it was nearly to her lips when she saw an email that caused her stomach to contract. She put the mug down and stared at the name and subject line in her inbox, dumbly.

**_Oscar Rodas_ ** _ Estás bien? _

"What?" Alex asked, noticing her just staring like an idiot at her phone, no doubt.

She couldn't even formulate words.

"Maggie? Maggie, are you all right?"

Wordlessly, she put the phone down on the table and slid it over to her left, towards Alex, orienting it so she could read the list of emails.

"Oh my God."

"Yeah," she managed.

"Is this the first time…?"

"Yeah." It was the first time she'd heard from her father since he'd visited for their shower. Since she'd told him she didn't need his approval, since she'd told him that she was already good.

"Maggie, you don't owe him anything," Alex said, firmly. "You can just delete it." She looked over at her. "You want me to open it and make sure he doesn't have anything else to say and then delete it?"

_ Of course she would offer to do that, _ Maggie thought, her eyes filling up with tears. Whatever else Alex was, or wasn't, she had been there for her when it came to her father.

"Maggie, it's okay," she said, softly. "Will you let me do this for you?"

She exhaled, slowly, and nodded, just once.

"Okay."

She couldn't even watch as Alex tapped at the email and read through it. She stood up and walked to the balcony door, folding her arms as she stared out at the city.

"Does it…" She took a breath. "Does it say anything else?"

"Not really," Alex said. "It's just the subject and then basically the same thing in the email itself, then saying that, uh, he and your mom are okay."

She felt the tears escape, a mix of sadness and anger.

"Do you want me to delete it?"

"Could, uh…" She roughly wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. "Could you just write back to say, uh...  _ yo también, gracias _ ?" She forced herself to think rationally, through the tidal wave of emotions. "And then, uh, once it's sent, then delete his mail and my reply? Please?"

"Of course."

Maggie continued to stare out the window, tears still falling down her cheeks, one by one. She didn't need her parents in her life. She'd been honest when she'd told her father that she was already good. But it didn't mean that sometimes she didn't still  _ want  _ them. And sometimes, that longing would surge through her entire body. Like it was now.

"Done," she said.

"Thanks," she murmured, wiping her tears away with her index fingers.

"Want to, uh, you know, talk about it?"

She snorted. "No." What she really wanted to do was punch something, or drink something, or cry until she couldn't breathe.

She heard Alex's chair scrape against the floor. "Hey," Alex said, approaching her.

She continued looking out the window, ignoring Alex.

"Hey," she repeated, reaching out and putting her right hand on her left shoulder.

Maggie closed her eyes, more tears escaping. The solid warmth of Alex's hand, the strength it represented… It was more than she could bear. She dropped her arms to her sides and looked over at Alex, her chin trembling.

"It's okay," she said, and the next thing she knew, Alex was holding her.

That's when she lost it. She clung desperately to Alex, crying openly, gasping for breath occasionally, holding a fistful of Alex's shirt with one hand and the other wrapped tightly around Alex's waist. She buried her face in the crook of Alex's neck. It was too much. The circumstances, being stuck in the apartment, being with Alex, her father reaching out, it was too much and she couldn't hold it in any longer.

Alex held her close, absorbed her sobs, muttering soft phrases, stroking her hair. Even in the moment, Maggie knew she shouldn't let Alex console her like this, shouldn't let her be this close, but she couldn't help it. She'd longed for Alex to hold her again, though she'd honestly never imagined herself sobbing in her idle fantasies.

After a few minutes, she'd calmed down and consciously forced herself to release Alex. She looked up at her. "Thank you," she murmured, as she pulled away, Alex's arms still around her.

"Of course," she said, her eyes locked on her own. "It's okay," she repeated. She squeezed Maggie's shoulders. "Okay?"

She nodded, sniffling. "I, uh…" She made a face. "Sorry about the mess," she said, noting the damp patch on Alex's t-shirt.

"It's fine," she said, not even looking at it. "I don't want to hear another apology from you, okay?"

Maggie nodded.

With a small smile, Alex let her hands drop and went to the kitchen counter to grab a couple of tissues.

"Here," she said, passing them over to Maggie, while dabbing at her own neck with another.

"Thanks," she said, accepting them, and patting her face dry before blowing her nose.

"Better?"

She nodded and Alex opened the cabinet door for her to toss the tissues in the trash.

"Good." She closed the cabinet and headed back to the breakfast table where she picked up her coffee and continued to look at her own phone, as though nothing had happened.

Maggie marvelled at her kindness. When Alex was uncomfortable, she hesitated and she paused, she stammered and a dozen other things. There had been none of that in the interaction. She'd seen Maggie was hurting and just took charge, doing whatever she could to ease her pain, and then console her.  _ Dammit, Danvers, this is the kind of stuff that made me fall in love with you in the first place, _ she thought to herself. She sighed quietly and turned to the fridge. Tiramisu sounded like the perfect breakfast after that. She opened the door.

"Don't even think about it," Alex said, from the table, not even looking at her.

Despite everything, she grinned as she shut the door to the fridge. "And when the hell  _ do  _ I get to eat my tiramisu?"

"After a proper meal," Alex said, still gazing at her phone.

With an exaggerated eye-roll, Maggie came back to the table, smiling. "Fine," she said, sitting down. For the first time since she'd been ordered to allow Supergirl to bring her back to National City, whether she liked it or not, she thought that maybe things  _ would  _ be fine.

***

Alex was incredibly attentive the rest of the day. If Maggie hadn't known better, she'd think that Alex had done something incredibly stupid at work and was buttering her up before telling her she had nearly been maimed -- again.

In a way, it was nice. It had been a long time since anyone had deliberately spent so much time and energy on making sure that Maggie was okay.

Alex made them lunch. She let Maggie pick what Spotify station they should listen to that afternoon, as they worked at the dining table together, as they'd done the previous days.

She offered coffee, tea and water, at various points throughout the day. She offered snacks, although maintained that a piece of tiramisu needed to wait until after dinner.

Not once did Maggie notice Alex talking to Kelly. She found that odd. It was one thing to be kind and a whole other thing to completely ignore your girlfriend in favour of your ex.

"How's Kelly?" she asked, as Alex was making another pot of coffee around three in the afternoon. "You normally have a quick call with her after lunch. Everything okay?"

There was a pause and she was certain Alex was glad her back was to the rest of the room. "Haven't talked to her much today, just a couple of texts. She's busy."

"Ah," she said, wondering if that was the truth. "Lots of patients?"

"Yeah."

"And, uh, you wouldn't, you know, be avoiding your girlfriend because you're potentially worried about making me feel uncomfortable, would you?" she ventured.

"No," Alex said, turning around, hands on her hips. "I'm not avoiding her because I'm worried about how you might feel."

Maggie looked at her skeptically. "Promise?"

"I promise," Alex said. "My not talking to Kelly today has nothing to do with how you might feel."

She narrowed her eyes at Alex. Maggie felt that Alex was probably telling the truth, but there was likely something more to it. Still, she decided to accept Alex's words at face value.

"All right," she said, "but I want you to know that it's okay for you to talk to your girlfriend, Alex. Even after this morning. Okay? I'm fine. I'm not going to break down again."

She nodded. "Okay. And, just so you know, it's okay if you do."

Maggie smiled. "You're being awfully nice to me, Danvers."

"Are you complaining?"

"No," she said, "you may continue," she grinned.

Alex grinned back and then turned back around to prepare the coffee.

Maggie stared at her for a moment more, a smile still on her lips. She'd missed Alex's friendship. Well, she'd missed their relationship, to be sure, but their friendship was something she'd really missed.

She turned back to her laptop. She was a bit of an outlier among the lesbian communities she'd been a part of. Unlike most of her queer friends, Maggie didn't tend to stay friends with her exes. She tried, sometimes, like with Darla. But with Emily? Obviously not. And she hadn't tried at all with Alex, either. It had been too painful.

Still, that had been three years ago. As much as it still ached to no longer be with her, it was actually nice to be in Alex's presence, to chat and laugh and even cry with her. She'd missed it. She'd missed having Alex in her life.

She smiled at thank you at Alex as she brought her a mug and sat back down.

Of course, she wasn't thrilled to discover that Alex was dating someone. She hadn't expected her to be single, of course, but it had been a bit of a shock to the system to know that she was in a relationship. Maggie was trying to be cool about it. Although she wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, she was incredibly relieved that Alex hadn't taken her up on her suggestion of having some private time in the bath with her phone and Kelly. It had been a calculated risk. She'd been trying to prove to Alex that she was cool with things but had also known that it was likely Alex would be way too shy to go ahead with her suggestion. If she had, Maggie would have had to go out onto the balcony to escape. She was cool with a lot of things, but the concept of Alex having a sexy video chat with her girlfriend in the bath? Definitely not that cool.

Part of why she wasn't that cool, and would never be that cool, was because a part of her was still in love with Alex Danvers, and always would be.

Maggie knew that part of why she was feeling things so keenly was the situation. After years of not speaking, not seeing one another, they were being forced to spend time together, to be civil, to renegotiate the social contract that existed between them.

To her surprise, she found that she could deal with it, mostly. But, she admitted to herself as she blew gently on her coffee, Alex's girlfriend was one area where she was not nearly as evolved as she'd like to be.

***

To her utter shock, Alex even made dinner. She had absolutely insisted.

Maggie, of course, had insisted on supervising her from the other side of the counter to ensure nothing caught on fire.

"So what are you making?" she asked.

"It's a surprise."

"But it requires the stove?"

Alex nodded. "You don't need to watch me, you know. I can usually make this without needing the fire extinguisher," she joked.

"I'll be the judge of that," teased Maggie.

She watched as Alex brought out a pan and a pot, then some bread, some cheese… and it hit her. "Really? Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches?"

"I thought maybe some comfort food was called for," she said, her back still to Maggie.

She smiled. "There you go again, being all nice to me," she groused, good-naturedly.

"You complaining?" Alex said, slathering butter over a slice of bread.

"No, no, I'm kind of enjoying this," she grinned.

Dinner was ready shortly thereafter and they sat down at the table to eat.

"So I was reading something today," Maggie mentioned.

"Hm?" Alex was chewing.

"What do you think about cloth masks? Like, not surgical masks or special masks. Just cloth ones."

Alex finished chewing and nodded. "They're not going to be great to protect you, exactly, but they'll be good for containing stuff you might inadvertently spread."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, think about it," she said, picking up her napkin. "If I cough or sneeze, even into the crook of my elbow, or into my hand or whatever, there's still stuff that's going to escape, right?"

Maggie nodded.

"If you cough or sneeze and I have a mask on," she put the napkin over her mouth and nose as a makeshift mask. "Then I'm relying on this cloth to protect me and it's not really designed for that."

"With you."

"But if I put it on and I'm the one who's coughing or sneezing, it's going to catch a lot more than just my elbow will. And if both of us wear one, they should be pretty effective. Not as effective as real masks designed for it, but still, it should help to prevent infection."

Maggie spooned the last of her soup into her mouth, thinking. "There are, like, debates over the efficacy of cloth masks. Like what if it gives someone a false sense of security?"

She shrugged. "We can only try to educate people on proper use of masks and why to use them even if they're not particularly helpful in preventing you getting sick. The trick," she said, "is to pretend like you're the one who has it. If you take all the measures you can to prevent you from transmitting it to someone else, and if  _ everyone _ does that, then we'll be in good shape."

She thought about it. "Yeah, that makes sense." She looked over at Alex. "Do you think we're sick?"

Alex shrugged again. "Honestly, I don't know. I know that cases were spiking in Gotham while we were there. We both took flights to Gotham and they could have been carrying people who were sick. Maybe people at the conference were sick. There are a ton of ways we could have gotten it. That's why we're hanging out here for a couple of weeks, to make sure we don't transmit it to anyone else if we're sick and asymptomatic, or just pre-symptomatic."

Maggie exhaled. "I don't like not knowing, Alex."

"Me either," she admitted.

"Every tickle in my throat, every time I want to sneeze, I pause, wondering if this is the start of it."

"Well, we should know soon."

"Isn't the incubation period up to fourteen days?" Maggie was confused.

"That seems to be the maximum incubation period," Alex confirmed, "but the average time to start displaying symptoms is about five to seven days."

"So we should know in what, three or four days, probably?"

"Probably, but not definitely."

She nodded and exhaled. "We should be fine if we get it, right?"

"Well, we're both in good health, we're both young, so yeah, we should be fine," Alex agreed, but there was something to her tone that didn't quite sit right with Maggie.

"Somehow, Danvers, I don't think you quite believe that yourself."

"Busted," Alex muttered. "I really don't know, Maggie. We  _ should _ be okay, based on what we've heard from China and Europe, but I don't have all the answers. I don't even have  _ most  _ of the answers. All I know is that we're better off in quarantine than out there right now. Even if, you know, quarantine has... its own challenges."

She laughed. "Delicately put." She looked over at Alex. "Thank you," she said, "for letting me stay here instead of at the DEO."

"I'm just sorry we had to bring you back at all. Letting you stay here seemed like literally the least I could do."

"Orders are orders, Alex, I get it." She quirked a smile. "Besides, it hasn't been so bad, right?"

"Right," Alex smiled back.

***

That night, after dinner, Alex had even insisted on doing the dishes, although that hadn't taken too long. They'd decided to watch some more episodes of  _ The Good Place _ , and Maggie had not one, but two pieces of tiramisu as they did so. Well, one and a half. Alex had stolen a few bites from her second piece.

After three episodes, Maggie elected to take a shower and get ready for bed. She even remembered to hang up her towel, having noticed Alex had done so for her the other day. Her apartment had two bathrooms, so even with a roommate, it had been so long since she'd shared a bathroom with someone that she hadn't even thought about hanging up her towel. Once done, she was surprised to come back out into the main room of the apartment to find Alex had pulled out the sofa bed.

"Is this a hint or something?" she joked. "I'm a little too old to be told that it's bedtime."

"You're taking the bed tonight," Alex said, simply.

She frowned. "Why?"

Alex shrugged. "Because I said so."

"Is this because of this morning?" She didn't want Alex's pity. Alex's thoughtfulness all day had been okay, and dinner was sweet, but this felt like it was more than that. She felt it crossed some kind of line if this was because of the email from her dad.

"It's because you won a night in the bed fair and square."

Well, she had her there. She  _ had _ won a night in the bed. She narrowed her eyes at her, to let Alex know she knew what she was doing. "All right," she said. Extensive experience told her that, in a situation like this, it was easier to agree than to try to argue. "You want your pillow?" she asked.

"Please," she said, putting a blanket on the sofa bed as Maggie went to grab the pillow from what was Alex's preferred side of the bed. She tossed it at Alex, who caught it and put it in its place at the head of the sofa bed.

"Thanks," she said. "I'm gonna shower. You gonna stay up for a bit?"

She shrugged. "Maybe." She found herself yawning. "Maybe not," she admitted.

Alex smiled and walked past her to get her pajamas from her bed. "Sleep tight, if you're asleep by the time I'm done."

"Thanks, Danvers. G'night."

"Sweet dreams," she said, closing the door to the bathroom behind her. A moment later, the door reopened. "Hey, are you feeling okay?" Alex asked.

"What do you mean?" She was confused, thinking maybe she was picking up on the thread of their conversation about the pandemic from dinner.

"I mean, you  _ hung up your towel _ . Are you okay? Are you sick? Should I call the paramedics?" She grinned, cheekily.

"Fuck you, Danvers," she laughed, grabbing the pillow from the sofa bed and throwing it at her, Alex closing the bathroom door just in time.

Still smiling, Maggie picked up the pillow and tossed it back on to the sofa bed, then grabbed her phone and the charging cable. She walked up the steps to what she'd always think of as her side of the bed. Of course, it wasn't her side of the bed anymore and she knew that. This was, well, Kelly's side of the bed now, she guessed. She pulled the covers back and sat on the edge of the bed, plugging the charging cable into the nearby outlet and then plugging the cable into her phone. It was all ridiculously familiar. She'd gone through these motions hundreds of times.

She pulled her legs up into the bed and then pulled the blankets over her, acknowledging the weirdness. While she'd truly never thought she'd spend another moment in this apartment, spending a night in this bed had never even crossed her mind. It had been so far away from possible that she hadn't even thought about it.

Predictably, the bed smelled like Alex. As she curled up in the bed, the aroma surrounded her. Most days, Maggie would have recoiled from it. She'd have put as much distance as possible between herself and anything that reminded her of her time in a relationship with Alex. Whether that was the Barenaked Ladies or turning off the news when Kara was on or just not getting pizza from the place she and Alex had usually ordered from, she had a list of things she tried to avoid. Those reminders would inevitably cause her to start down a spiral of introspection, leading her to the low point of wondering if maybe she could see herself with a kid or two. Her therapist had been very firm with her that she should not reconsider the option of children if she didn't actually want children for herself. And she knew she didn't want them. It didn't stop her from occasionally thinking about it, though, particularly when reminded of Alex.

But that night's introspection was different. Thinking of Alex's kindness and compassion from that morning, and her thoughtfulness throughout the day, coupled with her light teasing just a bit ago, Maggie felt safe and even loved. She let herself be wrapped up in her ex's scent, burrowing into those feelings. Of course, she knew her feelings couldn't be trusted. She knew she couldn't trust Alex not to hurt her again. For that night, though, just for that night, she decided to give in to the comfort and the thought of Alex. No fighting. No kids. No breakup. No heartbreak. Just Alex. She drifted off to sleep quickly.


	5. Day 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, okay. It's officially a fix-it fic. This chapter doesn't look like it's leaning that way, I know. But trust me. We'll get there.

Predictably, her dreams had all been about Alex. Alex and her. Alex and Kara. Alex at the DEO. Alex in the apartment. Alex at Kara's. Alex at the police station. Alex in her patrol car with her. Alex Alex Alex. She woke up just as one version of Alex in her dreams had bent down to kiss her, waking just before their lips had touched. She sat upright, her heart pounding.  _ Dammit. _

"You okay?" Alex called, from the kitchen, noticing the movement.

She took a breath. "Weird dreams."

Alex nodded. "Coffee? Bagel?"

"Please," she nodded. She forced herself out of the bed. It had felt so good to be back in that bed, surrounded by Alex's scent. She'd slept like a log, hardly moving in the night. "I'd forgotten how comfortable it was," she admitted.

"The sofa bed isn't bad, but yeah, the bed is a bit better."

She snorted. "A bit?"

Alex grinned. "I'm trying to make the transition back to the sofa bed easy for you."

"Well, I'll just have to keep trying to win a night in the bed, then."

"More Spit?"

"Well, I'm sure as hell not going to play Battleship with you. Cheater."

Alex laughed.

_ 11 more days,  _ Maggie thought.  _ I can do this. _ As she washed up in the bathroom, she wondered if this confinement together meant that she and Alex would be able to have an actual friendship after all of this. While she hadn't regretted having a meaningful relationship with Alex, one of her biggest regrets was losing their friendship. She'd often wondered if Alex felt similarly.

She exited the bathroom and noted that Alex had put the coffee and bagel at her place at the table.

"Thanks, Danvers," she said.

"Sure."

She took a bite of the bagel and gazed thoughtfully at Alex, who was already into her work email on her laptop. "Hey, uh, not to make this awkward…"

Alex froze. Maggie saw her swallow before she carefully raised her eyes up and over to Maggie. "Hm?"

"I, you know, I, um…" Maggie stumbled on her words. "Fuck it, it's going to be awkward." She took a breath. "Despite the circumstances, despite everything, I, uh, I've enjoyed hanging out with you again."

She watched Alex's reaction carefully. She noted the slow, deep inhalation.

"Yeah," she admitted, "me too."

"Yeah?"

She nodded. Maggie smiled, knowing Alex too well. She may have meant it, but she was still being guarded with her response, with her feelings.

She cleared her throat. "I've thought about our friendship, you know. A lot." She didn't give Alex a chance to respond and just forged ahead. "I've thought about how I still don't meet many people that I care about. And, uh, you know, not having you in my life? It, uh, well, it sucks."

Alex inhaled sharply at that.

"I was hoping, if you're okay with it," she said, quietly, "that maybe, assuming we don't kill each other in quarantine, that, uh, maybe we could be… friends?"

She watched as Alex swallowed, how her breathing sped up, how her eyes darted away from Maggie's. She was nervous.

"It's okay," Maggie said. "We can wait to see if we survive the next 11 days, first."

Alex gave her a relieved smile and nodded.

She smiled back, feeling better for having said that much. She wasn't out to win Alex back, but she'd meant what she'd said. Given the last few days, she found herself not wanting to imagine her life without Alex in it again, at least in some capacity.

***

"Hey, uh, would you mind if Kara came by tonight for a bit?"

Maggie blinked and looked up from her laptop. "For Sister Night?"

"Kinda."

She shrugged. "I mean, as long as you two don't mind my being here," she said, shifting in her seat. "I don't want to, like, intrude on Sister Night."

"I think it'd be nice to hang out, the three of us."

Maggie couldn't stop the snort.

"Oh come on, you and Kara are way past that stuff, aren't you?"

"We were in a good place," she said, "you know, uh, back then." It always squeezed her heart a little to refer to their past relationship. "It's fine."

Alex squinted her eyes at her. "I can't tell if that's you actually being fine with it or if it's you saying it's fine because you're resigned to it."

She chuckled. "I'm fine with it, but even if I weren't, what, I'm going to prevent you from spending time with your sister? In your own home?"

"You have a choice," Alex said, firmly. "I'll tell Kara right now not to come, if you want."

"No, Danvers, really, it's fine," she assured her, though she appreciated the gesture.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay." She texted Kara and smiled a moment later when the response came back. "She wants to know if she can bring anything. Pizza?"

"Oh, definitely pizza," she said. "More beer." She considered. "Oh, and a game or two, maybe?"

Alex nodded and texted her sister.

It might be fun, after all, Maggie admitted to herself.

***

Around six, they heard the tell-tale  _ whoosh _ signalling Kara's arrival as she landed on the balcony. Alex opened the balcony door and took the pizza and beer she was carrying, leaving Kara custody of the potstickers and a bag carrying a few different board game options.

"This smells amazing, Kara," Alex said, putting the pizza box down on the dining table. "You let me know how much I owe you later, okay?"

She nodded, a strange look on her face.

"Thanks, Kara!" Maggie chimed in as she went to the kitchen to get the plates.

Kara was oddly silent.

"Something wrong?" Alex asked, as she put their laptops over on the kitchen island.

Maggie turned to look at Kara, still clad in her superhero outfit. She seemed to be sniffing the air.

"Kara?" Alex pressed.

Her sister's brow furrowed, a familiar crinkle appearing between her eyebrows. "Did… did you two…?" She pointed her index finger at them both, going back and forth for a moment.

"What? No!" Alex exclaimed, getting what Kara was thinking.

Maggie shook her head, understanding in a flash  _ why _ Kara had thought that. "You, uh, you can smell us on each other, right?"

Still looking vaguely scandalized, Kara nodded.

"Ohhhh," Alex said, drawing it out, almost comically.

"Your sister couldn't beat me at Spit, so I won a bet, winning a night in the bed. So she slept on the sofa bed last night and I slept in the bed."

"Ohhhh," Kara said, in what was probably an unintentional impression of Alex. "Sorry," she said, with a weak grin. "That darn super sense of smell." She pulled out her glasses and put them on, her suit retracting. A moment later, there stood mild-mannered Kara Danvers.

The three of them chatted amiably as Kara ate every single last potsticker and a full pizza to herself, while Alex and Maggie shared the other one.

"It's so nice to not have to worry about you getting sick or anything," Alex said to Kara. "I've missed you."

"Me too," she said.

Maggie chewed her bite of pizza and tried not to feel jealous. Not that she really had anyone that she'd want to see right now. Maybe her aunt, although maybe not in this situation, in this apartment, with these people. But even so, that Alex could see her sister virtually anytime she wanted was just, well, unfair. She sipped at her beer as the sisters chatted amongst themselves for a few minutes.

Not for the first time while spending time with Alex and Kara, Maggie wondered what it would have been like to have a sibling. Would her parents have raised that child to hate her the way they did? Or would she have been the second born, and maybe had an older sister, or older brother, to defend her to her parents? Maybe her tia would have had to take them both in. Or maybe, she considered, maybe an older sibling would have prevented their father from kicking Maggie out in the first place.

Or maybe a younger sibling would have pleaded with their parents to keep Maggie. Maybe a younger sister would have been her maid of honour at her wedding. She swigged at her beer again, trying to stop her thoughts, trying to stop being jealous of what the Danvers sisters had. After all, maybe a sibling would have hated her just the same as her parents, would have seen her as shameful, as an abomination, as sinful. Maybe a younger sister wouldn't have even let Maggie be there for her quinceañera, much less accept to be Maggie's maid of honour. No, there was no guarantee that a sibling would have stood up for her, would have fought for her.

"So," Kara said, standing up, interrupting Maggie's thoughts, "what do you two want to play?" She got the bag carrying the board games. "I have, uh, Monopoly, Scrabble, Settlers of Catan, Pandemic--"

"Wait, wait, did you  _ actually  _ bring the Pandemic board game for us to play while we're in the middle of a global pandemic?" Alex interrupted.

"Uh, of course," Kara replied, holding up the box. "It seemed appropriate! How often are you going to get to  _ play _ Pandemic  _ during  _ a pandemic?"

Maggie was laughing out loud. "She has a point, Alex. Gets my vote."

"Me too," she said. "Two to one," Kara declared, with a huge smile, as Alex rolled her eyes.

Maggie just continued chuckling. If nothing else, it could be fun. What could go wrong?

***

What could go wrong, of course, was that Alex Danvers was  _ the _ most infuriatingly stubborn person in the world.

It had started out fine. Kara had set up the game quickly, using her super-speed. Maggie hadn't played Pandemic in a long while, but she did remember that setup was, generally, a pain.

The trouble had started immediately when Alex pouted that she wasn't randomly assigned the role card she'd wanted. Of course Alex would want to be the Scientist, so Maggie rolled her eyes and took Alex's Dispatcher card and gave Alex her own Scientist card, leaving Kara as the Medic.

"Thanks," Alex had smiled.

Maggie had just rolled her eyes again and gone to get them all more beer as Kara finished setting up the board.

The goal of Pandemic was to work together to find cures to the four diseases that were threatening the various world cities on the board. There was the black one, which Alex and Kara habitually called The Black Plague. Then there was the red one, which they had previously dubbed Ebola. The blue one was named H1 Nerd 1, which they'd gotten from a YouTube video of people playing the game. As to the yellow, they had officially renamed it COVID-19, in honour of the current pandemic.

To begin, the three most heavily infected cities were Ho Chi Minh and Jakarta, with the red disease, or Ebola, and Essen, with H1 Nerd 1. Each of the three cities had three cubes on them, representing levels of infection. With two cubes were Tehran, Mumbai and Sydney, while Khartoum, Lima and Taipei each only had one cube.

Each player had four actions on their turns and they each had a special power. Alex's Scientist, for example, only needed four cards of a single colour to cure the disease of the corresponding colour, while the rest of them needed five. Kara, as the Medic, could clear a city of all infection in a single turn, whether that was one cube, two cubes or three cubes, while the others could only remove one cube per action until that disease was cured. As Dispatcher, Maggie could move people to another city on her own turn, if it would help. Often, it would be quite useful, as sometimes people would be short just a single move to make a major impact on the state of an area.

"Who goes first?" Maggie had asked.

"Oh, usually Kara goes, because we tend to play by the rules of who's had the worst illness and, you know, kryptonite and stuff…"

She'd somehow managed to refrain from rolling her eyes and had nodded.

Together, they'd all looked at the board and at the various options. The red disease, Maggie couldn't keep track of their nicknames, was threatening Ho Chi Minh and Jakarta, with lesser infections in Sydney and Taipei, so she'd suggested they get Kara out there as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, Kara hadn't had a great set of cards, with Bogotà, Algiers and Istanbul. A city card could be used for a few different things, like curing the disease that matched the colour, or allowing a player to build a research center on that city if they were there. Additionally, a player could be in that same city as another player and trade them that city's card. Of course, a player could use the card to fly to that location, or, if they were already there,  _ from  _ that location. Kara's starting hand didn't have any cards that would allow her to easily get out to eastern Asia or Australia.

"No, I think she would be best used in Europe to clear out Essen," Alex had argued.

"Well, someone's got to get to Asia," Maggie had said, firmly. "Jakarta is not looking good, neither is Ho Chi Minh."

"I could do it. I have Sydney and Taipei…"

"Right, but as the Scientist, you only need two more red cards to cure it," Kara had pointed out. "You don't want to waste your red cards on travel."

Alex had blown out a breath. "So what, then?"

"Well, if we're sure we want Kara out in Europe--"

"We are," Kara had interrupted. "I can use my Algiers card to get there, then move to Paris and then to Essen to wipe that out."

"Okay, so if Kara goes to Essen to clean that up, then I could move you to Sydney, while I take care of Lima."

Alex had looked at the board. "I guess you're right, the Americas are in okay good shape, so Kara and I can head over to Europe and Asia."

Kara had quickly tossed her Algiers card into the discard pile and then moved herself to that city. "One," she'd said, counting out her moves, "two to go to Paris, three to go to Essen and four to treat the outbreak in Essen."

Kara had drawn two cards, one for Shanghai and one for Washington DC, and then it had been time to infect more cities, ending her turn. As a red card, they'd all been pretty excited about Shanghai. Maybe Kara and Alex could meet in Shanghai to "share knowledge", as the game put it, which would allow Kara to trade Alex the card belonging to that city, getting them closer to a red cure.

London and Karachi had each gotten infected with the blue and black diseases respectively, both getting a single cube. Still, the rest of the board was in pretty good shape, as compared to East Asia.

"You're up, Mags," Alex had said, swigging her beer.

She'd paused at that for a moment. Not once in the four days that she'd been staying with Alex had she called her anything but Maggie. Not babe, obviously, not Sawyer, and not Mags. She hadn't known what to make of it. So she'd gazed pensively at the board instead.

"Okay, so I have Lima, Delhi and Kolkata, so I think the best thing I can do here is to move you," she'd said, pointing at Alex's marker, "to Chicago, to LA, to Sydney, which is three moves." She'd looked at the board. "Then I can use my Lima card to go to Lima and, on my next turn, clear off that cube and see if anything else crops up in the Americas."

Alex had nodded. "Sounds good."

Maggie had ended her turn after moving Alex to Sydney and herself to Lima. She'd drawn two more cards, Johannesburg and São Paulo, and then it had been time, once again, to infect more cities. Milan and Chicago had both gotten hit with one blue cube each.

Then, it was Alex's turn, so she'd taken two turns to clear the two cubes from Sydney and then had moved to Jakarta, where she was able to clear off one of the red cubes.

Bit by bit, the three of them were clearing out the infections and dealing with new ones. They'd just cured the red disease when Kara got that look in her eye that meant she was about to go all superhero on them.

"Sorry, I have to…" she said.

"Go," Alex said. "Come back if it won't take too long."

She nodded and ripped off her glasses, the suit assembling itself around her.

"Be safe," said Alex.

"See you," added Maggie.

"Bye!" Kara had said, and was gone out the balcony door before they'd even registered that she'd spoken.

"Should we keep playing?"

"Yeah," Alex said, "she might not even be back tonight." She was looking at the board. "So our priority should be to cure the other diseases now that we've cured the red one."

Maggie looked at the board. "Don't you think we should ensure that we eradicate the red one? We have Jakarta, Bangkok and Tokyo all at 2 squares."

"Well, the goal of the game is to cure the four diseases."

"Right, but as long as the disease isn't eradicated, we can still get outbreaks, infections and epidemics related to that disease."

"Yeah, but all of us can clear the cubes in one move now that it's cured, just like Kara could," she pointed out. "And if Kara just walks through the city, it gets cured, so we don't need to worry."

"What if we get an epidemic card and it hits, I don't know, Jakarta, which already has two cubes? That's an outbreak and Chennai gets one, Bangkok gets up to three, Ho Chi Minh gets one and Sydney gets one."

Alex shook her head. "I'm more worried about H1 Nerd 1 than Ebola right now."

"But with an outbreak, the outbreak meter goes up."

"It's still early in the game. It's just not a big deal compared to the situation starting up in Europe. London has three cubes, Milan and Essen have two, while Madrid has one. And over in North America, Chicago has two. No, the blue disease is the bigger threat," she argued.

Maggie inhaled slowly, trying to calm herself, trying to remind herself it was just a game. "I'm just saying that we could eliminate the disease and not even have to worry about Asia."

"Right, but the plague is threatening this whole section here," Alex pointed at the board.

Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine. Do what you want to do, Alex, like always."

She looked up at that. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing," she muttered. "Go on, have Kara's medic travel to Paris and clean off London, then move to Essen and clean that one."

Frowning, Alex did just that, finishing Kara's turn. The next cities to be infected were Tehran and Mumbai.

With a sigh, Maggie cleared the one block from Algiers, her current location, then flew to Tehran by discarding that card and cleared off the one block that was there before moving to Karachi, where two cubes awaited her.

"Wait, did you clear Tehran?"

"Yeah…?"

"Why don't you not clear Tehran and move to Karachi and clear one there?"

"So you want me to do what you want on my turn, but my input apparently doesn't matter for yours?"

"That's because my idea for Kara's turn was better," Alex said. "And my idea is better here. It's better to have more 1-cube cities than a 2-cube city, because you're spreading out the risk of an outbreak."

"Yeah, but at the cost of taking extra turns to treat the cities when the cure is found," she pointed out. "It'll take more moves to clear out two 1-cube cities than one 2-cube city."

"We don't even need to clear it after, we just need to focus on the cures."

Maggie picked up a cube from Karachi and placed it on Tehran. "Fine. I do not clear off the one cube on Tehran and I move directly to Karachi and clear off one of the cubes there. Happy?"

"Yes."

They went through another round of turns. Maggie had just built a research station in Kolkata to be able to turn in five yellow cards for a cure to the yellow disease on her next turn. She drew Madrid… and an Epidemic card.

"Shit."

"This isn't going to be good," Maggie muttered, moving the infection rate up a notch.

Algiers was the city that got infected. They now had Algiers, Milan and Mumbai each with three cubes. Chicago and London got infected, bringing Chicago to three cubes as well. They got lucky.

They were staring at the board after Alex's turn, which infected Jakarta and Tokyo.

"I told you we should have eradicated the red disease," Maggie muttered.

"Shh, I'm thinking."

Maggie studied the board, running the different scenarios in her mind.

"Oh, I got it!" Alex said, excitedly, as she started to move Kara's piece around the board.

"Wait, wait, what are you doing?"

"Hang on," she said. "Two moves, clear, that's the third move," she said, as she cleared Algiers of all three blocks, "and that's four," she finished, moving Kara's piece to Paris.

"What did you just do? She literally has the cure to the black disease in her hands and there's a research station in Kolkata that I just built! I thought that was part of why I built it."

"This is better," Alex said, smiling.

"How? How is that better?"

"We'll use the government grant to build in New York, I'll meet her there next turn and we can share New York and we'll cure blue and then cure black."

"Danvers, it's supposed to be a cooperative game. We're supposed to work together."

"But this is going to work!"

"Uh, huh." Maggie was unconvinced. "Like we didn't dodge a major bullet with the last Epidemic card?"

"Come on, this is fine. We should win after Kara's next turn. We just have to hold out that long."

"You still have your turn and my turn to go before it's Kara's again. We could get infections or, worse, another Epidemic."

Alex shrugged. "We'll deal with it then."

Maggie shook her head. "I don't get how you think it's just fine to do that."

"I think it's worth the risk."

"You  _ always _ think it's worth the risk," Maggie chided. "You're just like your sister, never looking before you leap. But, unlike her, you can't fly."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alex furrowed her brow.

"I mean, for someone who's as smart as you are, it's infuriating how often you just go off half-cocked and act on instinct."

"Such as…?"

She laughed in disbelief. "You really want me to list some examples? Gee, let's see… kissing me after you came out to Kara?" She ticked off the event with her index finger. "Or maybe going after your dad, alone?" She extended her middle finger to join her index. "What about jumping off the DEO balcony during the Daxamite invasion?" Her ring finger joined the other two. "Or, hell, proposing to me afterwards?" Her pinky popped up and she wiggled them at Alex.

Alex stared at her. "I never heard any complaints."

"Just because you're right  _ most _ of the time, Alex, doesn't mean you're right  _ all _ of the time."

Alex scoffed. "I thought you were… what was it,  _ ride or die _ ?"

"Oh, you do  _ not _ want to call my loyalty to you into question. I  _ was _ ride or die for you. You know that."

"Sounds like you didn't tell me how you really felt about those events."

"Alex, I was ready to support you  _ as a friend _ when I didn't think you weren't ready for a relationship. I was going to be your friend anyway, because I cared about you! And I wasn't going to let one impulsive kiss ruin our friendship. For the other stuff, I thought it was more important to be a supportive girlfriend than chide you."

"Didn't hear you complaining when I proposed." Alex swigged at her beer.

She sighed. "I said yes because I wanted to marry you, Alex. I did. But, obviously, we should have talked about a few things first." She took a breath. "Like kids."

Alex scowled and Maggie knew she'd hit a sore spot. The fact that it was three years after they'd broken up and Alex didn't yet have a kid… certainly, that meant something, didn't it?

"So, what, I'm just this terrible, impulsive person?"

"Alex, that's not what I'm saying."

"What  _ are _ you saying?"

"That maybe it wouldn't kill you to consult with other people once in a while and let them know what you're thinking. Like, you know, during a game."

"The game doesn't matter," Alex said, shoving at the board, pieces scattering. "This is about more than the game."

"Of course it's about more than the game," Maggie shot back, standing up and pacing back towards the fireplace. Arms folded, she stared at the mantle, at a spot where a picture of the two of them had used to live. "You broke up with me pretty impulsively, too."

"It was days, Maggie!"

She turned around, arms still folded. "I would have fought for you for  _ years _ . I would  _ still _ be fighting for you. But you, you just had to end it."

"It was the same argument, over and over! We weren't ever going to agree, even if we did spend years fighting over it. We would  _ still _ be fighting!"

"If kids were so damn important to you, why didn't you ever mention them before?"

"Because it was implied!" she shouted. "Get married, get a house, a dog, a couple of kids! That's how it works!"

"So you're blaming our lack of communication on, what, heteronormativity and heteronormative goals?"

"Fuck, Maggie, there's nothing heteronormative about my wanting to have kids!"

"But you assumed! You  _ assumed  _ that I'd want kids too. Because, in your world, that's what people did. They fell in love, got married, had kids. Did it really never occur to you that kids might not be something everyone wanted? That maybe I didn't want kids?"

"And what about you?" she shot back. "Did it never occur to  _ you _ to tell me that kids would be a dealbreaker?"

She paused. It was something she'd questioned for months following the breakup. How had she gotten herself engaged without having that discussion?

"See? You can't blame me for thinking we were on the same page, because you made the same assumption," she spat.

It was true. She had no quick retort for that. She had absolutely made the same assumption that she was accusing Alex of having made.

Alex picked up her phone and headed to the balcony.

"You can't go anywhere," she muttered. "You can't fly, you know."

"That's why I'm calling someone who can. Don't wait up." Alex slammed the door behind her, leaving Maggie alone in the apartment.

A moment later, she heard Kara arrive and then leave just as quickly, followed by a dull sonic boom. No doubt Kara had turned on the afterburners so she could get back to whatever emergency she'd been called away to. She peeked out at the balcony to double-check; Alex and her sister were gone.

Alex had to be  _ the _ most infuriating person on the entire planet. Doubly so when she was right.

Which, Maggie admitted to herself with a sigh, she was. They'd both made assumptions, both of them had neglected to consult with the other about what their future looked like, beyond a dog who would have been named Gertrude.

She hated being wrong. More than that, she specifically hated being wrong when Alex was right. She hated it even more when it meant she had to apologize.

Rather than sulk like a teenager, Maggie decided to start cleaning up. She started with the remains of the board game. She was still convinced that Alex was making the wrong decision with Kara's character, but they'd never be able to reconstruct the game to settle that argument. She meticulously packed it away, counting the tiny disease cubes to make sure none of them had fallen on the floor or been kicked under the couch.

Next, she tackled the dishes and trash from dinner. Kara's potsticker and pizza containers were completely empty, so she took care of those before wrapping up the two leftover  pieces of her and Alex's shared vegetarian pizza in plastic wrap and putting them into the fridge. She was then able to put the second box into the recycling bin and start in on the dishes.

After an hour, everything was clean and put away, but Alex still wasn't back.

Maggie was still pissed off, but most of it was her annoyance that she knew she'd have to apologize to Alex when she got back later that night.

If she got back that night.

Maggie sighed and put on the kettle, making herself a cup of herbal tea, then sat in the armchair to read some of her book. It almost -  _ almost _ \- felt like Alex was out at the desert DEO base on an overnight shift, leaving Maggie with an evening to herself. Except, instead of a sense of eager anticipation for Alex's return, all Maggie had was a knot of anxiety in her stomach. She'd been wondering when they'd finally get into it. Part of her had known it was inevitable, but the rest of her had wished they could live in harmony for two weeks.

10:30 came and went, marking two hours since Alex had stormed out of the apartment.

Maggie took a shower and got ready for bed, taking her time. She hung up her towel and got changed into her pajamas. She'd have to do laundry the next day, she decided, or maybe ask Kara to pick up a few things from her place.

She looked at the clock. 11:30. She waited. She paced. She even texted Alex when she hadn't come back by midnight.

"So are you just not coming back tonight?"

Even after waiting a few minutes, there was no response.

"Alex? Alex, would you just reply to me? I'm sorry. Would you please come back?"

Still nothing.

She texted Kara to ask if Alex was okay and that too had gone unanswered. Of course, it was Kara, so maybe she was out saving someone's life. Her not responding didn't mean a lot.

By half-past twelve, Maggie decided that Alex wasn't coming back that night and, as such, decided to sleep in the bed again. There was no sense in letting a comfortable bed go to waste, after all.

It took her much longer to fall asleep than it had the night before. Alex's scent just reminded her of the uncomfortable situation that lay ahead of her, when Alex eventually got home. They were going to have to have a conversation.

Eventually, she fell into a restless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: I played a game of Pandemic in order to see how things would go and my dispatcher -- Maggie -- actually got the Lima card. I laughed. A lot.


	6. Day 4 (cntd) and Day 5

Kara had been nice enough to zip over and drop her at her apartment before getting back to helping out with a five-alarm fire in a high-rise complex. The elapsed time between texting her sister and getting to Kara's loft was about thirty seconds. They'd definitely broken the sound barrier.

She had poured herself one whiskey, then a second, and, eventually, a third. What else was there to do? She couldn't call Kelly and complain, because she'd wonder why she was breaking quarantine and risking infecting her sister. She couldn't talk to Kara, because she was busy saving hundreds of lives. She briefly considered calling her mother and then decided against it, knowing Eliza would encourage her to brush things off and just deal with Maggie for the next week and a half.

So she drank. And she paced. And she yelled at an imaginary Maggie during an imaginary argument as she paced through Kara's loft. And finally, exhausted, she sat down on the couch and cried, unable to keep the emotions bottled up any longer.

She wasn't handling Maggie's proximity well. It had been several days and she still wanted to wrap an arm around her waist, pull her in for a kiss, curl up with her on the couch. She'd, unthinkingly, stolen a bite of tiramisu the previous night, and, to her credit, Maggie hadn't smacked her upside the head. So she'd stolen a couple more.

It felt… She sniffled and wiped tears away with her sleeve. It felt as though Maggie was melting her. She'd actually been  _ playful _ with her last night, with the tiramisu, with the towel comment. She could feel her heart opening up, feel the warmth in her chest when she was around Maggie. A line from a poem by e.e. cummings that Maggie had been a fan of popped into her mind.

_ you open always petal by petal myself _

And that's how it felt. It felt like her heart was opening itself up to Maggie, like a flower. She had gone from being an anxious mess when seeing her at the conference to trying to navigate through things with her like adults, to taking care of her, to having fun with her… and then arguing with her. She was feeling the full range of emotions with her, which wasn't something she generally let herself feel. Certainly, she didn't feel things as keenly with Kelly.

Kelly.

That was a whole other problem. She roughly wiped her tears away and took another sip of her whiskey.

She had mostly told Maggie the truth about not talking to Kelly the day before. Kelly did have a large caseload, but the main reason she hadn't talked to Kelly was because she felt guilty. She felt guilty about how she was feeling about Maggie. She felt badly for her traitorous body wanting to be close to her. She felt awful that her heart ached to pull Maggie into her arms. She felt as though Kelly wouldn't have understood the moments she'd spent comforting and consoling Maggie after her asshole father had written to her.

And she  _ definitely _ knew that Kelly wouldn't have understood how good it had felt to hold her.

It had taken her forever to even consider dating again, her dalliance with Sara Lance on Earth One notwithstanding, and she'd just sort of fallen into a relationship with Kelly. She was nice, she was cute, she was queer… she was  _ there _ . But, she wondered, not for the first time, if she'd ever really gotten over Maggie.

The way her stomach had clenched when she'd heard her call out her name at the conference, the way her body reacted to her presence… After three years, wouldn't one think that the thought of an ex wouldn't cause these feelings to well up inside? Wouldn't one think that they could just talk to an ex like a normal human being without feeling like… this?

Even if she wasn't over her, though, it didn't matter. Maggie didn't want kids and she did. Dealbreaker.

Besides, it wasn't like Maggie was perfect. She could be an enormous pain in the ass. Like tonight. She was still in a foul mood from their argument.

She took another drink from her glass. How dare she accuse her of being impulsive? How dare she be so hurtful? In her own home, no less? Here Alex was, doing Maggie a  _ favour _ , and this is how she's repaid?

It didn't help Alex's mood that Maggie had a point. Alex's instincts and impulses had almost always worked out for her. Go in after Kara when she was under the Black Mercy's influence? No problem. Go get Kara from space after she got rid of Fort Rozz? Sure. Go to Maaldoria to find Kara? Done.

Alex Danvers was smart and strategic and tactically brilliant, but it was her gut that told her in which direction to go.

That's why she'd kissed Maggie at the bar, after she came out to Kara. She could still hear the words. "I'm buying, all night. What're you having?"

And then, in her mind, her response was a simple  _ you _ .

So she'd kissed her. She had been so sure that Maggie had wanted her back. As it happened, she  _ did _ want her back, but felt it wasn't a good idea because of the circumstances. Alex had claimed some kind of moral victory for her instincts there. Maggie had wanted her too and, had Alex not just come out, they probably would have started dating then. Instead, she'd gotten excessively drunk and ended up crying in her sister's arms. It had been one of the few times her instincts had led her astray.

Breaking up with Maggie, the first time, the time when Kara was stuck on Maaldoria, had been instinctual, too. She had been so out of her mind with worry for Kara, so convinced that the universe was smacking her down for being happy, that she'd broken up with Maggie. She couldn't juggle everything -- a missing sister, secret missions, her sister's identity, plus her new relationship with Maggie. For a while, there, she'd thought it was what she deserved, and she'd been ready to accept that until Kara was home safe.

She tipped back the last of her whiskey.

Maggie was right. She  _ was _ impulsive. But being impulsive almost always worked. She'd proposed to Maggie after Kara had been the one to tell her never to let her go. And, to her surprise, Maggie had said yes. Yet one more moment where impulsivity had worked out for her.

But had it? Being impulsive about the proposal had locked them on the path of marriage. It had allowed them to bypass some of the more important steps in a longer courtship. They hadn't discussed money much, nor had they discussed moving out of the apartment into a house in depth, although they had agreed they'd need a house before getting Gertrude.

And they hadn't discussed kids. Obviously.

"How could I have been so stupid to assume things?" she wondered, aloud.

Her phone buzzed. She checked it and, of course, it was Maggie texting her. She shut her phone off entirely. She wasn't in the mood. Besides, she didn't even know if she was going to go back home that night, and that's what Maggie was asking about.

She sighed and got up and forced herself to drink some water before going to the bathroom. She came back out into the living room and turned on the television to some documentary.

Alex dozed for a couple of hours, half-awake and half-asleep, dreaming about Maggie and arguing with her and then kissing her soundly.

When Kara came back, hours later, she was ready to go home. All she wanted to do was pass out in her bed for a few hours. She knew that waking up early at Kara's, so that she could get back home before Kara went to work, would be painful after the amount she'd had to drink. So, even though Kara disagreed with it, she was nice enough to bring her home, dropping her off on the balcony before flying home to get some sleep herself.

Alex carefully opened the door and let herself into the dark apartment. She slipped her shoes off and put her phone on the kitchen counter. Blindly, she crept through the dining area, as far away from the couch as possible, in order to prevent Maggie from waking up. She walked up directly to her side of the bed and, fully clothed, slid into bed, relieved to be home, and horizontal, at last. She turned on her left side and flung out her arm to grab a pillow and curl up with it and received the shock of her life when her hand connected with something that was, decidedly, not a pillow.

"Fuck!" Maggie shouted, rolling out of bed and to her feet. "What the hell?"

She sat bolt upright. "Maggie?" What was going on?

"What the hell are you doing coming in at," she paused and looked at the clock, "two in the morning? I thought you were staying the night at Kara's!"

"Well, I'm not," she muttered.

"Obviously," she growled, pulling her charger out of the wall and stomping back to the living room area, taking her pillow with her.

Alex sighed as she heard Maggie toss the seat cushions off of the couch.

"Maggie."

"What?"

She exhaled. "The bed's big enough. Why don't you come back here?"

The noise in the living room stopped. "Just how drunk are you?"

"Um, yeah, uh, sorta, I guess kinda drunk," she admitted. "But come on, it's late, you were asleep. It's okay, you can sleep in the bed."

"With you?" She scoffed.

"Look, if you don't want to, that's fine. I'm just trying to be nice."

"Says the woman who stormed out of here like six hours ago."

She sighed. "Do you  _ want  _ to have this conversation now or do you want to sleep in the bed?"

"Neither," Maggie muttered, and she heard the sofa bed being pulled out.

"Fine. Don't say I didn't offer," Alex said, as she rolled back over and curled up with one of her extra pillows.

"Besides, I'm sure Kelly wouldn't appreciate our bunking together."

"Yeah, probably not," Alex agreed. It hadn't even occurred to her what Kelly might think. All she'd been considering was that it might be nice for Maggie to sleep in the bed. It might have been nice for both of them.

"G'night, Danvers."

"Night," she said, eyes already fluttering shut.

***

Alex woke up slowly, aware only of how tight her bladder was and how much her head ached. She forced an eyelid open. It was pre-dawn, so probably about five in the morning. She made herself get up and grabbed her pajamas as she padded to the bathroom, where she used the facilities and then changed. She also took the opportunity to drink another glass of water and take two painkillers. Maybe she'd feel better when she woke up for the day, hopefully a couple of hours from then.

She blinked as she saw Maggie's towel hanging up, again. "Two nights in a row, Maggie? You  _ must _ be sick," she chuckled to herself. She left the bathroom and tiptoed back up to the bedroom area, dumping her clothes on the floor next to the bed, before crawling back in.

Falling asleep proved to be more difficult than she'd hoped. Her head pounded angrily at her, no matter her position.

And then, of course, there was the knowledge that she and Maggie would need to have a talk in the morning. A talk where Alex would have to admit that Maggie was right. She was not looking forward to that. As much as she hated to admit it, Maggie's approach of examining every angle and then deciding which was the best tended to work. It was just slower, more considered. Just like Maggie. Not that she wasn't brilliant, but she would work to gather evidence to prove her case, unlike Alex.

In truth, they complemented each other quite well. Maggie would generally keep Alex from rushing into things, while Alex would encourage Maggie to be a bit more spontaneous.

How had everything gone so wrong? How could Maggie not want kids? They were perfect for each other in virtually every other way.

She thought back to the previous year, when she'd had a short window of time to decide whether or not to adopt the baby in Portsmouth. Even if Maggie had wanted kids, she wouldn't have encouraged her to do so on such short notice. Not like Kelly. Kelly encouraged her to be bold, to make those quick decisions, to lean into her instincts. And she was there to support Alex no matter the choice. Much like Maggie had, really. The difference was that Kelly… Well, Kelly didn't challenge Alex's nature. She just seemed to go with the flow. Maggie, on the other hand, had tested Alex's assumptions, had questioned her actions, had forced her to grow into the woman she was today. Hell, she had questioned Alex's orientation, forever changing her life. Kelly, by contrast, didn't make a habit of demanding that she look at the reasons behind her actions or statements.

The painkillers started to kick in and Alex fell asleep, thinking of both Maggie and Kelly.

***

Alex woke up to the delightful smell of coffee brewing, which meant that Maggie was awake. In an instant, the prior night's events tumbled into her brain and she winced. They had to have a conversation. She wasn't ready for it, but it was morning, Maggie was up -- she had to do it. She took a breath and opened her eyes and looked at her watch. It was almost nine.

She sat up slowly, expecting her head to pound, but it only ached a little bit. The water and painkillers must have helped.

"Morning," Maggie called from the kitchen.

"Morning," she answered.

"Coffee?"

"Please."

Alex got out of bed and went to the bathroom. When she got out, Maggie had set her coffee on the counter.

"Pancakes?"

"Uh…" She blinked. "Sure. That would be nice, thanks."

Maggie busied herself in the kitchen and Alex came over to the counter and picked up her coffee, taking a sip. She saw her phone on the counter and remembered turning it off while at Kara's. She reached for it and turned it on.

She wasn't prepared for the cacophony of noises. She had eighteen text messages, three missed calls and one voice mail.

Maggie turned around. "Trouble?"

She shrugged. "Turned my phone off last night."

"Ah. Well, a couple of the texts are from me."

Alex was scrolling through. "Yep. I see." Two from Maggie, one from Kara… and fifteen from Kelly, at hours ranging from just past midnight to ten minutes ago. "Oh god."

"Hm?"

"Kelly's been trying to reach me."

"Oh."

She looked at the missed calls. All Kelly, all since seven in the morning.

She took a deep breath and called her voice mail.

"Alex, it's 8:30 in the morning. When you have a moment, would you please give me a call?" She winced and groaned audibly.

"That bad?" Maggie asked.

Alex put it on speaker and let Maggie hear.

"Ooh," Maggie said, "yeah, you should call her right now. I'm guessing she's not a lady you want to leave waiting."

_ Why am I going to have two incredibly difficult conversations today? Why? _ Alex sighed.

She skimmed through the text messages from Kelly. She was just worried. It would be fine. She hit Kelly's number and took a breath, bringing the phone to her ear.

"Well, I'm glad you've finally found the time, during your incredibly busy quarantine, to call your girlfriend."

"I'm so sorry, babe," she said, "I…" She paused. She hadn't come up with an excuse. She couldn't say that she'd argued with Maggie, gone to Kara's and turned off her phone. She forced her still-groggy brain to work. "I, uh, you know, I forgot to charge my phone and it died. I just plugged it in now."

Maggie turned to look at Alex, eyebrow raised.

She shrugged at her and Maggie turned back to the pancakes.

"Uh, huh."

"Look, I'm really sorry," she said.

"Well, I'm glad you're okay."

"Yeah, of course. I'm fine. There's absolutely nothing to be worried about when I'm literally trapped in my apartment." She squeezed her eyes shut, realizing her mistake as soon as the words left her mouth.

"With your ex."

She sighed. "Yes, with my ex."

Maggie turned back around, both eyebrows raised this time. Alex waved her away. God, how she wished she could have five minutes without an audience.

"Do I need to be concerned, Alex?"

She swallowed. "No, of course not."

"Would you tell me if I should be?"

"Uh, yeah, of course, but that's not the case."

There was a pause. "I have a patient waiting. I'll talk to you later?"

"Okay."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

She hung up and blew out a breath.

"Well, that didn't sound great from this side of things."

"It wasn't the best conversation we've ever had, no," Alex admitted, putting the phone down and picking up her coffee.

"Any particular reason you lied to her?"

She took a sip of the coffee. "Couldn't very well tell her I was at Kara's last night."

"Oh. Right. Because she doesn't know."

"Right."

"You ever think of having that conversation?"

She shrugged. "You told me you knew. She'd have to tell me the same. I'm not going to tell her Kara's secret. It's not my conversation to have."

"Okay."

"And, uh, speaking of conversations, can we…"

"Hm?" She turned around again.

"Can we just hit pause on the conversation that we need to have until I've had coffee?" she asked, tiredly. "Please?"

"Of course," Maggie said, smiling. "After breakfast, maybe."

She sighed in relief, relaxing her shoulders. "Thanks," she said. She took a sip of her drink. "And thanks for cleaning up last night."

Maggie shrugged. "Yeah. It's cool." She flipped over a couple of pancakes and turned back to Alex. "Speaking of cleaning things, I need to do some laundry. You have anything you want me to wash?"

Alex blinked. She hadn't been expecting Maggie to be so kind and gentle with her, not after their argument last night. "Uh, yeah, I have stuff in my hamper. You don't mind?"

"I mean, I'm doing it for myself, so I may as well make myself useful."

"That's really nice of you, Maggie. Thanks."

"Sure. I'm also going to need to ask your sister to pick up a few things at my apartment."

She nodded. "I'm sure she'll be happy to help."

"Great," Maggie smiled and went back to making breakfast.

Alex was still confused. "Uh."

"What's up?"

"I mean, not to complain, and not to get into a conversation now, but… are you okay? Why are you being so nice to me?"

Maggie turned around again and took a deep breath. "I want to apologize for last night."

" _ You _ want to apologize for last night?  _ I _ want to apologize for last night! What are you going to apologize for?"

Maggie chuckled. "Oh, I don't know, calling you out on being impulsive? Telling you that it wasn't fair that you made assumptions when I made the same one, maybe? Why were you going to apologize?"

"For yelling at you and storming out, mostly," she admitted, "especially because I really am kind of impulsive at times."

She laughed as she turned back to pile the pancakes on a plate. "At times?"

"A lot of the time."

"Uh, huh."

She rolled her eyes. "Most of the time," she conceded.

"Better."

Despite everything, she smiled. "So… are we okay?"

Maggie took a breath and took a moment to pour more batter into the hot pan. She turned to face Alex again. "We… have stuff to discuss, still, I think. Right?"

She made a face and nodded.

"I think that, maybe, if we want to try to work some stuff out, so that we can, you know, be friends, that we should talk about it."

She sighed. "Yeah."

"And maybe we should start with those assumptions."

She nodded. "But, like, after coffee? And pancakes?"

Maggie laughed. "Yes, after coffee and pancakes."

***

Two cups of coffee and a stack of pancakes later, Alex and Maggie sat in the living room, Alex on the armchair, Maggie on the couch.

"Work doesn't need you?" Alex asked.

"I told them I needed the morning for quarantine-related stuff. You?"

"I said I'd be online this afternoon."

Maggie nodded. "So."

"So." Alex did not want to start things off.

"So… I wanted to apologize for last night. It wasn't fair of me to bring up all of these examples of you being impulsive."

Alex shrugged. "I mean, you were kind of right."

"Maybe," she admitted, "but it was meant to be hurtful, and I could tell that it was. And I'm sorry about that."

She exhaled. "It's okay."

"It's not, though. I shouldn't have, you know, brought  _ us  _ up."

Alex laughed. "How could you  _ not _ ?"

"Well, you know, bringing up your dad, jumping off the DEO balcony, any number of things you've told me about. I didn't have to throw in the proposal or… anything else… in there."

"But you have a point," she argued. "It's true. I'm really impulsive. You're not. You're…" She paused. "Methodical."

Maggie quirked a smile, letting one of her dimples show.

"And you think about all the options. I bet you're good at chess."

"Haven't played in years, but I was always okay at it."

"See, and I get destroyed every time because I see an opening and I take it. Even when it's a trap."

"Well, that sounds about right," she smiled.

"So yeah, I'm impulsive. It's just kind of who I am and who I've always been. And you're the opposite of that. You look at the whole picture, you look at all the angles and it's part of why you're so good at your job."

"I'm sensing a but here, Danvers."

She laughed. "No, no buts. I mean it. And one of the neat things here is that you made me slow down sometimes and I made you be more spontaneous."

She considered that. "Yeah, I guess so."

"I mean, how else do you explain you accepting my shitty proposal?"

Maggie chuckled. "It wasn't shitty."

"I didn't have a ring. I didn't get down on one knee. I just blurted it out."

"Proposals don't have to be so heteronormative, you know. I thought you did just fine," she said, looking at Alex in the eye.

Alex swallowed, returning her gaze. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

With great effort, she pulled her eyes from Maggie and focused on the contents of her coffee mug.

"Alex, I meant what I said. I said yes because I wanted to marry you."

She blew out a breath. "Yeah. And my impulsiveness meant we skipped over the important conversations. Like money, a house…" She swallowed.

"Kids."

"Kids," she agreed. "And you weren't wrong. I did make the assumption that you would want kids too, because, yes, that's what I saw everywhere growing up. It never dawned on me that you wouldn't want kids."

"And I'd never heard you talk about kids, so I just assumed that you would be fine without being a mom."

She exhaled. "We both could have communicated a lot better. I'm sorry. For last night. For back then."

"Me too, I'm sorry for trying to hurt you. And I'm sorry about assuming things, too." Maggie looked over at her. "Has anything changed, for you, over the last three years?"

Alex looked back. "That's not what you're asking."

"No, it's not."

She took a drink from her coffee, acknowledging that Maggie was really asking why she didn't have a kid yet. "No, things haven't changed, but adoption is a long process with usually a two year minimum wait."

"Ah. And, uh, is… I mean… There are… other ways? I guess?"

She shrugged. "I can't really see myself having a biological kid, you know?" She chuckled. "Can you see me out in the field, seven months pregnant? Because I can't."

She snorted.

"Exactly." She took another drink from her mug. "So it's either adoption or my wife has a kid. And without a wife…"

Maggie looked down at her own mug. "How's Kelly feel about things?"

She exhaled. "Yeah, I mean, she's supportive. There was, uh, this opportunity, last year."

She looked up at her. "Oh?" 

"Before Kelly and I got together, I got a call from the adoption agency. The mother was a teenager. She was in labour. And I was the person she'd chosen." Alex swallowed. "She, uh, she changed her mind. But I had to make the decision to go for it and, well, Kelly was incredibly supportive of it. She, uh, she even came with me to Portsmouth. And was there when I learned the mom had changed her mind."

"I'm sorry, Alex, I didn't know."

She shook her head and blinked back the tears. "It's okay," she said. She cleared her throat. "So. Yeah. Kelly's supportive of my wanting to be a mom. It's, it's too early for anything else, like, uh, marriage or… whatever." The thought of marrying Kelly seemed preposterous to her at this point. They didn't spend as much time together as she and Maggie had, and they weren't planning on moving in together anytime soon. No, if she and Kelly were ever going to get to the point of raising a kid together, it would be a long way down the road.

Maggie nodded. "Gotcha."

Alex took another drink of her coffee. "And, uh, what about you? Has anything changed for you?"

"Well, I've thought about it a lot, I'll tell you that."

"Really?" Alex felt a glimmer of hope surge in her chest.

"Really." Maggie looked away, staring ahead at the mantle above the fireplace. "When you, uh, you lose someone, you…" She exhaled. "You look at things critically, you know?"

"Mm, yeah."

"So I went to therapy."

"You? Went to  _ therapy _ ?" She could have laughed. "Aren't you the kind of woman who likes to drink something a little harder than beer and lose your cool?" she joked.

"Yes, but therapy is great. You should try it sometime," she grinned, looking at Alex.

"Uh, yeah, no," she scoffed.

"Your girlfriend hasn't psychoanalyzed you yet?"

"Emphatically not." She paused. "Not to my face, anyway."

"Well, it helped me out. I got into some of my issues, you know? Like the stuff with my folks. And we talked, at length, about whether or not my not wanting to have kids was related to my relationship with them."

Alex swallowed. "And?"

"I told you that I never saw myself as a mom. And that was true. But, you know, when I realized how important it was to you, I started questioning that. I, uh, I started  _ trying _ to picture myself as a mom."

"But?" She knew that Maggie wouldn't miraculously want to be a mom. She just knew it.

She gave a half-smile. "But, I couldn't. I mean, first of all, let's be clear, I'm  _ not  _ giving birth."

"I hear you there."

She chuckled. "But also, like, 2am feedings? Potty-training? Helping out with math homework? None… none of it appeals to me, you know?"

Alex exhaled. "Yeah, I guess."

"You know, one thing I don't think I ever asked you, Alex, is what does being a mom mean to you? Like, what… what is it about it that appeals to you?"

She looked over at her, not having expected the question.

"I'm guessing it's not the diapers," Maggie said, mildly, a twinkle in her eye.

She laughed. "Okay, no, the diapers are not, uh, awe-inspiring, no. I did my fair share of babysitting as a teenager and I can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect of years of dirty diapers." She finished her coffee and set the mug on the coffee table. "I mean, you know my mom."

She nodded.

"I, uh… I guess over the last few years, I've realized I didn't give her enough credit."

Maggie raised an eyebrow.

"She had just lost my dad, had an alien placed in her care and had a surly teenager to deal with. I know I haven't always had the easiest relationship with her, but she did pretty well, all things considered." She gave a small smile. "She's part of what makes me think I could actually do this, even if I'm on my own."

"That is a far cry from the Alex Danvers who was terrified to tell her mom she was gay at Thanksgiving," Maggie remarked.

She smiled. "It is. We're a lot closer than we were, back when you and I were first getting to know one another."

"And back then, she  _ still _ guessed what you were going to tell her because you mentioned me  _ that often _ ," Maggie teased.

"Yeah," she grinned, remembering.

"So is that it, then? It's because of your mom?"

"No, it's… it's more than that, you know? I want… I want to be that presence. That mom who's just always gonna be there for her kid. Who's going to yes, do the 2am feedings and change the diapers, but also teach them how to ride a bike and tell them why the sky is blue. I want to read to them and watch as they learn to read. I want to be there when they skin a knee and I want to be there when they get their heart broken for the first time." She took a breath. "I just… I have so much love to give and I want to share it with someone."

Maggie nodded. "And, uh, it's not enough to share it with a partner."

"I…" Alex sighed, "I don't think so, no." Things were creeping into the realm of discomfort.

"Right." She took a sip of her coffee.

"What, uh… what about you?"

She shrugged. "I just always figured that the woman I marry would be enough for me. I have plenty of love to give, too. I just don't think I need a kid to be fulfilled."

It was hard to hear, even now.

"And I like my freedom," Maggie added. "The idea that I could just drop everything and go up the coast for a weekend with my girlfriend? My wife? You can't really do that with a kid."

"Right, because you're spontaneous enough for that to be a possibility," Alex teased.

She chuckled. "Touché, Danvers. You're the one who's more likely to just run away for a weekend, if it weren't for your job."

"That's true," she acknowledged.

"Better get all that out of your system before you end up adopting your kid."

"Right. Now. In the middle of a global pandemic."

"I didn't mean  _ now _ ," she grinned. "But yeah, you're not going to be able to be as impulsive with a kid, you know."

She thought about it. "You're right. My life is going to be a lot more scheduled and planned out with a kid to think about." She frowned. "How is it that I'm the impulsive one and I want a kid and you're the measured one and you don't?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're the reliable one. You're the one who thinks things through. You'd be a great mom, whether or not you can picture it. You'd be the mom who knows when the PTA bake sale is two weeks ahead of time, while I'd be the mom who has to enlist Kara's help to bake a ton of cupcakes at super speed the morning of the bake sale."

Maggie laughed. "Yeah, that's probably true."

"Honestly, I think you're better suited to being a mom than I am."

"I think that's a bit of an exaggeration," she said, dismissing her comment with a wave of her hand.

"Maybe," Alex conceded, "but you can't convince me otherwise."

There was a heavy silence between them for a moment.

"The thought of it terrifies me, you know," she admitted.

"What, Kara cooking at super speed?" Maggie joked.

She shot her a look. "No," she said. "Being a mom."

"Yeah?"

She nodded. "When I got the call last year, I was like, spinning out of control. Kelly was really kind and helpful in grounding me and reminding me of what I want. But…" She took a breath. "But I was so scared, Maggie. Like, I was worried about everything from my exposed electrical outlets to not being able to get diapers."

"Danvers, don't be silly, you're gonna be a great mom."

She paused, her eyes welling up with tears. It was unintentional, she was sure it was, but hearing those words, from Maggie, hit her right in the heart.

"What?"

She blew out a breath. "Nothing." She silently cursed the range of emotions Maggie drew out of her.

"Bullshit. What's wrong? What did I say?"

Alex swallowed and tried to blink back the tears. "You, uh… when you left… that's what you said. You said  _ you're gonna be a great mom _ ."

Maggie blinked and then nodded, slowly. "Ah. You, uh, you remembered that?"

"What, remember my ex-fiancée's last words to me? Yeah." It had come out harsher than she'd wanted. "Sorry," she muttered.

It was Maggie's turn to well up. "You… you called me Mags last night and that's what you called me when I left." She sighed. "I get it."

"Is it too early for a beer?" Alex joked.

Maggie gave a small smile. "I meant it, though."

Alex looked up at her. "Yeah?"

She nodded. "You're gonna be a great mom. It might be terrifying, sure, but I know you can do it."

Alex gazed at her. "You are a ridiculously good person, Maggie Sawyer."

She scoffed.

"I know that, uh, that it must be hard to, um… say something like that. To me. Now."

"You think?" The sarcasm in her voice was almost tangible, but Alex ignored it entirely.

"But here you are. Encouraging me. Being supportive." She smiled over at her. "I appreciate it, you know."

"Yeah, well…" She shrugged.

"And," she continued, pressing her luck, "it's that kind of compassion that would make you a great mom."

Maggie just raised an eyebrow at her.

Alex grinned, raising her hands in surrender. "Just calling it like I see it." And oh, could she see it. She'd seen it in her mind's eye thousands of times. Maggie, holding their baby. Maggie, bleary-eyed at four in the morning, heating up a bottle. Maggie, pretending to be tough but absolutely melting when their child gripped one of her fingers in their entire fist. She could see it so easily.

"Well," Maggie said, "I think that chat went pretty well."

Alex looked up, her visions of Maggie holding a child vanishing. "Uh, yeah. I… thanks."

"For?"

"For talking. I think we probably should have done more of this back then."

Maggie nodded. "It's easier, I think, with a bit of distance. I mean, not  _ easy _ . But easier. Right?"

"Yeah. Easier." Except it wasn't that much easier. It was even more ridiculous to her that Maggie didn't want kids. She'd be an amazing parent. And now? Now she had to struggle to get that image out of her head.

"Okay," she said, standing. "I'm going to write up a list of things I need Kara to get from my apartment, then I'll get going on laundry. Can you let her know I need her to stop by for my list?"

Alex looked up. "Uh, sure. Yeah, I can do that."

"Thanks, Danvers. You can also separate your laundry for me once you've texted her."

"Right, sure."

Alex stood and brought her mug to the kitchen and then picked up her phone from the dining table. She texted Kara and her sister said she'd stop by around noon.

"Kara says noon," she informed Maggie.

"Awesome, tell her thanks," she said, sitting down to write out her list on a notepad.

Alex sent along the message and put her phone down and headed to the bedroom area to sort her laundry into whites, colours and dark colours.

She started sorting it automatically, her mind otherwise occupied. Not only was she trying to stop thinking about Maggie being a mom, she was struggling with the fact that, even with Kelly in the picture, Maggie was the person with whom she wanted to have a family.


	7. Day 6

The rest of Thursday passed mostly uneventfully. Maggie had been kind enough to do a couple of loads of laundry, including the bedsheets. Meanwhile, Kara had brought back Maggie's list of things from her apartment. She'd also brought more beer, stuff for sandwiches and, of course, more tiramisù.

They'd had a quiet evening, watched more of The Good Place and retired to their beds.

Alex hadn't had an easy time falling asleep. All day long, she kept coming back to her thought that  _ Maggie _ was the person she wanted to have a family with. She'd been quiet since their talk, blaming it on being tired after the argument, plus the alcohol and the lack of sleep.

She'd been careful to text Kelly frequently and had called her while doing the dishes.

But she hadn't felt like doing any of it.

So, having said goodnight to Kelly in a text message, she lay there alone, in the king-sized bed, and just  _ thought _ about things. She could have laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. It was reminiscent of when she'd first been coming out. Once again, Maggie Sawyer was responsible for her not sleeping well, stuck thinking things over and over again in her mind, mulling everything over.

Alex wanted to  _ say  _ something,  _ do _ something, but what? She couldn't very well say anything that she wanted to say. "Hey, Mags, uh, I know that you don't want kids, but I want to build a family with you, so would you reconsider?" It was ludicrous.

She hated this introspection stuff. It went against her instincts to  _ act _ on something. Instead, she was in bed, in the dark, not 20 feet from her ex-fiancée. It was dumb. So she rolled over and tried to fall asleep. Again. And then again. And yet again.

Around three in the morning, Alex finally fell into a restless sleep, her mind finally exhausted enough to let her drift off.

When she woke up, just before seven, her sheets and the blanket were a mess. Pillows had been flung to the floor, the blanket was halfway down the bed and the top sheet had come completely untucked and was essentially wadded up in a ball on the other side of the bed.

Grumpily, she got up and went to the bathroom before coming back out, grabbing her phone and starting the coffee.

Maggie's alarm went off shortly after. "Mmph," she muttered.

Unable to help herself, Alex smiled. "Pancakes?"

"Please," Maggie croaked, raising her head up off the pillows.

"Should be ready in just a few," Alex said, pulling the leftovers from the fridge and putting them into the microwave.

"Thanks," Maggie said, trudging to the bathroom.

Alex put Maggie's coffee by her seat, along with a fork and knife and a steaming hot plate of pancakes. She brought her own stuff to the table and went back for the maple syrup.

Maggie came out of the washroom, looking fresh and alert and, thankfully, not so much like early-morning Maggie. She picked up her phone and sat down at the table, back to the kitchen as always, just to Alex's right.

"Well, at least you can use a microwave," she joked.

Alex took the barb in stride and smiled.

A few bites into the pancakes, Maggie frowned as she chewed.

"What's up? Did it not heat evenly?"

She shook her head and stabbed in the air with her fork in the direction of Alex's bed. She swallowed. "That… looks like a classic  _ Alex Danvers had a fight with the bedsheets _ night of sleep."

Alex made a face. "Yeah, it wasn't a good night."

Maggie considered. "Well, it's been a while since you've had any real exercise," she said. "Frankly, I'm surprised it took so long."

She nodded. "Well, that's true." She knew it wasn't the main reason, but the lack of ability to punch something or run for several miles to tire her out wasn't helping things.

"How do you not even have, I don't know, a treadmill here?"

"Because I have a fully-outfitted training center like a block from here," she noted. "With a shooting range, even."

Maggie rolled her eyes. "A lot of good that does you when you're trapped here."

She made a face. "Treadmills suck anyway, they're so boring."

"Well, unless you get one, I don't see how you're gonna get any running in for the next, oh, nine days." She took another bite of her pancakes and chewed thoughtfully. "And, uh, you'll forgive me if I don't want to be around an Alex Danvers who's both not exercising  _ and  _ not sleeping well."

She laughed. "And what about you? I haven't seen you do any yoga."

Maggie nodded. "Yeah, I asked Kara to bring my mat, so maybe I'll do some today out on the balcony."

Alex considered. "Or, maybe I can get Kara to bring us somewhere isolated."

She looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. "What did you have in mind?"

"Maybe a hike?"

Maggie thought about it. "I could do a hike, sure."

"Awesome. Got anything to do later this afternoon for work?"

"I think I could be done by 2:30 or so, especially if I start soon."

Alex nodded. "Okay, sounds good. Let me check with Kara to make sure she can bring us there and back."

She smiled. There was something to  _ do _ .

***

By 3pm, Alex and Maggie were both dressed for a good hike at the Cedar Creek Falls Trail in the nearby national park. It wasn't particularly warm out, since it was March, so they had dressed in layers, Maggie borrowing a few items from Alex's wardrobe.

They had plenty of water with them, in a few different water bottles, plus some protein bars and some pretty sizable sandwiches for a bigger meal in Alex's backpack.

Kara arrived and picked them up, whooshing them to the trail within just a couple of minutes.

"I'll pick you up here at 8:15 sharp," she said. "I scanned the area coming in and you two will probably be the only people on the trail. If you run into anyone on your way back, just try to keep your distance and call me if you need me."

"Sounds good," Alex said. "Thanks, Kara."

"Yeah, thanks," Maggie added. "I appreciate it. If for no other reason than an Alex who isn't exercising is cranky."

"You aren't kidding," Kara chuckled. "All right, I'm out. Have a good hike!" With that, she leapt into the air and headed back to town.

"Shall we?" asked Alex.

"Let's," Maggie smiled.

Together, they headed down towards the trail.

If she hadn't read about it beforehand, Alex would have been confused that they were headed  _ down _ into a canyon to reach Cedar Falls. She would have otherwise expected to have to climb  _ up _ a mountain to reach the top of the falls. It would be an interesting hike for sure, since they were going downhill first. It meant that the way back would be more difficult, both because it was going to be uphill, but also because they would have already expended some energy walking the three-plus miles to the falls.

"It's only about a thousand feet elevation," she said to Maggie, as they walked briskly down the dirt rail.

"Oh, is that all?" she joked.

"It'll be fine, we'll sit by the falls, have our sandwiches and stuff and then have plenty of energy to come back."

"It sounds nice, Danvers," Maggie agreed. "Why didn't we ever do this, you know, back then?"

She shrugged. "Work was a little overwhelming. And also, we weren't quarantined."

"I guess that's a good point," she nodded. "We had the DEO or the gym, or could go for a jog at the park, and we had the option to just  _ go _ places."

"Right," Alex agreed. "I wonder how long this'll all last."

"Any guesses? You're the one with the medical degree."

She blew out a breath. "It depends. We have to figure out the R0, figure out what's the riskiest form of transmission, try to eliminate that, then probably all kinds of measures about keeping our distance from others."

"So you're saying we might be in quarantine even after this?"

"Well, you and your roommate would form a… sort of a pod, I would imagine, where you're the only people you both see regularly and in a confined space."

"Gotcha. And what about you? You and Kelly going to form a pod too?"

Alex sighed. "I don't know. I mean, I'm looking forward to a little time to myself after this. No offense."

"None taken," she smiled. "It'll be nice to just be alone for a bit."

"So, yeah, I guess I'll have to talk to her about it."

"You sound thrilled at the prospect, Danvers." There was a pause. "Everything okay with you two?"

"I guess."

"You gotta give me more than that."

She shrugged. "I don't like lying to her."

"How'd you explain this little trip?"

"I told her I was in meetings at the DEO about new hires all day and I'd talk to her tonight."

"Ah."

"So yeah, I hate lying to her, but I can't exactly tell her that my sister flew us out here." She sighed. "It's getting to me."

"Have you considered asking Kara if you can tell her?"

"Not really."

"Why not?"

She smiled sadly. "Because she hasn't figured it out for herself."

"So?"

"So… should someone who hasn't figured it out know?"

"Yeah, but this is your girlfriend, Alex."

"I know." She blew out a breath. "It would make things easier, but I don't think she needs to know if she can't put two and two together."

"Is she, uh, not um…"

"She's smart," Alex cut in. "But I guess she's just too awestruck by Supergirl."

"Gotcha." There was another pause. "Do you think she knows you're not being honest with her?"

She thought about it. "Probably. And she's going to think that it's because… uh…"

"Oh." She nodded. "She's going to think we're hooking up or something like that."

"Yeah," she exhaled. "That was sort of the implication yesterday morning."

"I'm sorry, Alex."

She shrugged.

"It's my fault. Do you want me to go to the DEO?"

Alex stopped and turned to look at her. "What?"

She stopped and looked back at her. "I'm serious. It would be easier for you."

"You  _ don't _ want to go to the DEO."

"No, I don't, but I also don't want to cause problems with you and your girlfriend."

"You're not," she said, shaking her head. "If there are problems with me and Kelly, they're not because of you. You might be a catalyst, but not a cause."

"Well, either way, I don't want to cause issues. I'll go to the DEO tomorrow, if you like. Just say the word."

"That's silly," she said. "No more talk about you going to the DEO. No one deserves to be locked up there."

"Not even aliens?" Maggie teased.

Alex rolled her eyes. "Dork."

"Nerd."

She smiled and they started walking again. It was so very odd to be discussing Kelly with Maggie, but it was also kind of… nice? Weird, but nice, she decided.

Soon, they saw the canyon stretched out below them.

"That's beautiful," Maggie said, pulling out her phone and snapping a few pictures.

Alex nodded in agreement. "With the rain we've had lately, the vegetation looks pretty lush."

"I'm glad we're here in March. I bet it's really hot and dry in June or July."

"Probably."

"So we go down into the canyon?"

"Yeah, gotta cross a couple streams too, then we'll end up at the waterfalls."

"Cool. We'll want to check our time once we get there and double it for getting back."

"Good idea," she agreed. "Want me to take your picture with that backdrop?"

"Sure," Maggie said, holding her phone out for Alex.

"Mine's got a better camera," she said, taking a couple of shots. "Take off your sunglasses."

She did and smiled, her dimples coming out, stray hairs that had come out of her ponytail blowing in the breeze. Her eyes sparkled. Alex took three different pictures. She was gorgeous.

"Selfie?" Maggie asked.

"Okay," Alex smiled, pulling off her own sunglasses. She moved and stood by Maggie, putting one arm around her shoulders and Maggie slipping her arm around her waist. It felt like the old days and she found a genuine smile on her face. She framed the canyon behind them as they both smiled and Alex took a couple different pictures.

Satisfied, they continued down the trail, the incline getting steeper as they started into the canyon itself. They'd have to be careful on their way back up, especially if it was close to sunset.

They got to the first water crossing and Alex cursed.

"I wasn't expecting it to be this wide or deep," she admitted.

Maggie shrugged. "It's just a little water, Danvers. Scared?"

She laughed. "No, I just don't particularly want to get wet when it's like, 55 degrees out."

"The only way to the other side is through," she said, sitting down on the trail.

Alex raised an eyebrow.

"I'm taking off my shoes and socks. I don't particularly want them to be soaking for the next several hours."

She sighed and copied Maggie. They stuffed their socks into the shoes and tied the laces together, hanging them over the backs of their necks.

"It could be slippery," Alex warned.

"I'll be careful."

True to her word, Maggie rolled up her pant legs and then carefully waded into the cold stream, the waves of the rushing water coming up past her knees.

Alex did the same with her khakis and took a step into the river. It was cold and she made a face, but she made it across.

"Well, the pants will dry," Maggie said, looking at both her own and Alex's. "More easily than the shoes would, anyway."

They toweled off their legs as best they could with a spare sweater and put their shoes back on. It wasn't so bad, even with the damp pant legs.

They kept walking, mostly in silence, as they navigated the bottom of the canyon. Alex revelled in the fresh air, in moving her body, in the blood pumping, her heart rate rising. It felt so good to be outside, the wind in her hair, the sun on her face. She could feel the weight of the world lifting from her shoulders the further they walked.

The next water crossing was shallow as compared to the first, but they still removed their shoes and socks to keep them dry.

"I wish I'd looked into how deep these were," Alex muttered, drying off her feet and getting her socks back on. "We could have brought boots or spare socks or something."

"It's all part of the experience, Danvers, enjoy it," Maggie smiled. "After all, depending on how things go with this pandemic thing, this could be the last trip out for either of us for a while."

"Ugh, don't remind me."

"I think you'd better invest in a treadmill sooner than later."

"Or a stationary bike," she considered.

"Something for you to burn off your energy, for sure." There was a pause. "Or, you know, you could just do yoga a couple of times a day," she teased.

"You think you're  _ so _ funny, don't you?" Alex teased back.

"Occasionally," she admitted, dimples appearing.

Shortly after the third water crossing, they could hear the rush of the falls ahead in the distance. A few minutes later, they came to the end of the path. Beyond a bunch of rocks and boulders lay a pool of water and a cliff rose beyond that. And stepping just to the right of the path, the white water careening off the cliff could finally be seen.

"And there we go," Alex said, "Cedar Creek Falls."

"Wow," Maggie breathed, gazing up at the water. She pulled out her phone and took several photos, then she and Alex clambered over the boulders and rocks to sit by the pool.

"This is gorgeous!" Maggie said, talking a bit louder than normal, to be heard over the falls.

"Yeah!" Alex smiled. The falls were beautiful, the sun was shining, Maggie was smiling… She couldn't imagine being happier at that moment.

They noted the time. It was 4:30, which meant it had taken them about an hour and a quarter to get down to the falls, which meant more than two hours to get back, probably. If Kara was picking them up at 8:15, they'd want to get back on the trail by 5:45 or so . Earlier, if possible, given that they'd likely be doing at least some of their trip after the sun had gone down.

"Hungry?" Alex asked.

"Definitely."

She pulled the sandwiches out of her pack, handing two to Maggie and keeping two for herself. She also pulled out the container with the veggies she'd packed: baby carrots, celery sticks, raw broccoli, cherry tomatoes.

They sat quietly for a few minutes, eating, enjoying the view, letting the sun shine down on them. It was completely deserted apart from the two of them and, if Alex let herself, she could have believed they were on a date.

But they weren't.

They were frie--. She paused, mid-thought.  _ Were _ they friends? They were certainly being  _ friendly _ , but did that mean they were friends?

"Question for you," she said, before popping a baby carrot into her mouth.

"What's that?" Maggie said, around a mouthful of sandwich.

"Are, uh… are we… I dunno, are we, like,  _ friends _ now?"

Maggie chuckled. "Wow, of all the questions I'd thought you might ask, that wasn't one of them."

She frowned. "What did you think I might ask?"

"How's the sandwich came to mind, frankly."

Alex laughed. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were stalling."

She shrugged. "I guess that depends on if we want this…" She waved her finger between the two of them. "... to continue. After quarantine."

She chewed thoughtfully. "Do you want it to?"

"I told you I did," Maggie responded, without hesitation. "You were the one who seemed a little, uh… terrified at the prospect."

"Yeah, you have a point," she admitted. "But I think we've come pretty far since then."

"That was two days ago, Danvers."

"Well a lot has happened in two days!" she argued, laughing.

"That it has."

"So, uh, yeah. I think so. And I think I'd like to continue hanging out, you know, after the pandemic."

"Yeah?"

She nodded, taking a bite of a celery stick. "It's been far too long since I kicked your ass at pool."

Maggie threw a cherry tomato at her, which just missed.

She felt so light and so energized and… happy. Was it just the outdoors? The sunlight? The sound of the nearby waterfall? Or, she wondered, as she looked at Maggie, was it something else? With the sun shining down on her, Maggie looked joyful and exuberant and it felt as though it was contagious.

They finished eating and took more photos of the falls and the surroundings, including some more selfies before packing up and heading back out at about quarter to six.

"This has been a lot of fun," Maggie said.

"We have a thousand feet of elevation to go in the next three miles," Alex chuckled. "Hold off on that sentiment until we're back at the trailhead."

She laughed. "No, but really, it's been fun. We should do this more often. Less pool and beer, and more hiking and nature."

Alex nodded. "Yeah, it's not something I've done a lot of, but it's been lovely."

"And next time, we could like, double-date. You bring Kelly, I bring… someone."

Alex's smile faltered and she was glad Maggie was beside her and not looking at her straight on. "Uh, yeah, totally. For sure."

"What, you don't like the idea?"

"Damn you and your detective skills," Alex joked.

"No, really, Alex, do you not want to do this again?"

She shrugged. "I, uh, I just don't know if this is Kelly's deal."

"Ah. Well, of course, check with her. And then if she's not into it, we'll go hiking together."

She took a breath and nodded. "Sure," she said. The truth of it was that she didn't want to go hiking with Kelly. And she didn't want Maggie to bring someone else while hiking. As soon as Maggie had mentioned bringing someone with her, her stomach had clenched. It wasn't unlike that time after Maggie had let Roulette go when her girlfriend had come by and they'd kissed, right there in front of her. Her stomach had lurched and her smile had sagged and she'd felt this overwhelming sense of illness, which she later identified as jealousy.

Alex rolled her eyes at herself as they walked through the canyon. She was jealous of a hypothetical date of Maggie's while she was in a committed relationship with Kelly. It was hypocritical to the extreme. If she could find some way to clamp down on her feelings the way she normally did, this would be so much easier. But then, she reasoned, she probably wouldn't be feeling the deep happiness in these moments with Maggie that she'd been experiencing.

The highs were higher than what she normally permitted herself to feel, but the lows were much lower. All she knew was that Maggie was doing  _ something _ to her, peeling back her defenses, making her open to a whole broad range of feelings of varying depths.

They chatted about random things, like books, television shows and movies as they walked through the canyon. They waded through the Cedar Creek twice and then the San Diego River before finally putting their shoes back on for good.

The sun was already down behind one of the other mountains, so it was getting dark on the trail. They could still see all right, but the lack of direct sunlight meant they had to watch the ground to make sure they didn't trip.

About halfway up the trail out of the canyon, Maggie, who was walking ahead of Alex, stumbled.

Instinctively, Alex reached out with her right arm and surged forward to hold her steady before she could fall.

For a moment, Alex stood there, holding Maggie in her arms. Carefully, she tipped Maggie forward so she was standing on her own two feet, but she kept her arms around her.

Maggie looked up at her. "Uh… thanks, Danvers," she said, quietly.

Alex swallowed, staring down at Maggie. It was getting dark, but she could still see the light sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She'd been in this position more times than she could count and what she normally did in this position was just… lean down… and… 

Neither of them moved for a moment until Maggie forced a smile and took a step back. "Thanks," she said, again.

Alex nodded. "Anytime."

Maggie started walking again and Alex followed her, filled with thoughts and memories of what it felt like to have Maggie's lips pressed against her own.

They arrived at the trailhead just after eight and Kara picked them up a few minutes later, dropping them off on Alex's balcony.

"Thanks, Kara!" Maggie called.

"Thanks," Alex repeated, waving at her sister, who then flew off.

They entered the apartment together and Maggie put her pack down and took off her shoes.

"I got dibs on the shower," she grinned. "You should call Kelly."

Alex nodded. "Okay." 

Maggie headed to the laundry basket to grab some clean clothes, leaving Alex to take off her pack and such.

"Hey, leave me some hot water, would you, please?" she called, as Maggie stepped into the bathroom.

"No promises, Danvers!" she teased as she shut the door.

Despite it, she smiled. Then, with a sigh, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and fetched her headphones from the dining table, before sitting down at the counter to call Kelly.

"Hey," Kelly said. "How were the interviews?"

"I mean, if this batch of recruits is reflective of society in general, then the world is in trouble." It was troubling how easily the lie came to her lips.

"That bad?"

She swallowed. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry, babe. Anything I can do?"

"Uh, no, not really," she said. "How are you doing? Holding up okay?"

"I miss you."

"Well, quarantine is over in like, eight days."

"I can't wait."

"So, what's new with you?"

They chatted for a bit and, with Alex promising to text before bed, she soon ended the conversation.

As soon as she hung up, Alex felt immeasurably guilty. She found that she  _ wasn't _ missing Kelly. All she wanted was to spend time with Maggie, even though she knew that wouldn't end well. Even without Kelly, there was no way she could get back together with Maggie. She didn't want kids. How could they get around that? She didn't see any way to do so.

It was a moot point anyway, since she  _ was  _ with Kelly.

But  _ should _ she be with her? Did Kelly make her  _ happy _ ?

She looked over at the fridge and considered getting a beer, but went for the whiskey instead. She just wanted her brain to shut up and leave her alone. There would be time to think about things after she was out of quarantine and away from Maggie.


	8. Day 7

The first thing she had done after her shower, while Alex was taking her turn, was email her therapist.

_ Hey Luisa, _

_ I know tomorrow is Saturday and all, but I'm really hoping you can squeeze me in for a session. I can probably wait until Monday, but the long and short of it is that I'm kind of, sort of, uhhhh… quarantined with Alex. And it's, you know, been… a weird week. I could definitely use some advice. I can do any time this weekend or Monday, just let me know when you get a chance, please. _

_ Thanks, _

_ Maggie _

Her therapist had written back just minutes later, even before Alex was out of the shower.

_ Maggie, _

_ You know I don't normally have patients on the weekend, but this is THE Alex? You're quarantined with your ex-fiancée?!? How's 11am Saturday? _

_ Luisa _

_ PS: SERIOUSLY?! _

She'd laughed and told her 11 was fine and she sent along payment as well. She'd sighed with relief, knowing that she could talk to her therapist about Alex, in-depth. She could talk to her about how she was feeling, about how good it had been to have Alex hold her after her dad had emailed, and Luisa would understand and maybe help her to gain a little perspective.

And maybe she could help Maggie stop thinking about that moment on the trail when Alex had caught her and the two of them had stood there, frozen.

Saturday morning arrived and Maggie cooked them some eggs and bacon and hash browns, much to Alex's delight.

"So, uh…" Maggie began, once they'd finished eating.

Alex turned to look at her.

"I have a session with my therapist today."

Alex frowned. "Everything okay?"

"Uh, yeah, it's fine, it's, uh, I had this appointment scheduled before everything, you know, happened," she lied. "It's a, uh, just a check-in call. But, uh, I'm going to go out on the balcony for the call, just so you know."

"Of course," Alex said. "Maggie, I know… I know it's a weird situation and I know this must sound absolutely moronic and even maybe mean, but please make yourself at home, okay? Like I've told you before, you don't have to live out of your suitcase and the laundry basket. I have plenty of space for your stuff."

She looked up at her. "Thanks, Danvers, I might take you up on that."

***

Just before eleven, Maggie poured her coffee into the largest mug Alex had. She then pulled on her jacket, since it was a bit brisk out.

"Have a good session," Alex smiled at her, from the dining table, where she was doing a bit of work.

"Thanks," she smiled, and let herself out onto the balcony. She closed the door behind her firmly and pulled one of the canvas chairs over to a corner of the balcony, where she could put her feet up on a cement flower box. Which was, of course, empty. Alex didn't exactly have a green thumb, so Maggie hadn't been remotely surprised to see nothing growing in the box.

She sat down on the chair and put her coffee down to her left before pulling out her phone and headphones.

She shook her head. It had been nearly a week and she still couldn't fully grasp that  _ she was here _ .

Well, a chat with Luisa would be helpful. Her therapist resembled Maggie in many ways. She was also queer, she was also a first-generation Mexican-American, and she was only a couple of years older than Maggie. They got along wonderfully and Luisa had been there for Maggie since the early days after her breakup with Alex.

She opened the video chat app and joined Luisa's meeting.

"Hey," she said, once connected.

"Well hello," Luisa replied.

"Thanks for seeing me on a weekend," Maggie said. "I'm really grateful that you could take the time."

"Your life has been… how shall I put this…  _ interesting _ lately, so it's the least I can do. How are you holding up? How long have you been in quarantine with Alex?" She paused. "No, you know what? Just start from the beginning."

Maggie laughed. "Hope you've got a coffee, it's a bit of a story."

Luisa held her mug up in the camera's frame.

"All right," she grinned. "So I was in Gotham at a convention. All kinds of neat equipment was being exhibited and I was there as the representative for NCPD. So there I am, on Friday morning, just minding my own business, waiting in line to get my badge, and looking around. I've been to some of these conventions before, so I wondered if I'd recognize anyone."

"Mm hmm," Luisa hummed.

Maggie exhaled. "And then I saw her. I froze. Like, was it her? Of course it had to be her. No one else would make my stomach just drop like that."

"Did she see you?"

She shook her head. "No. And, honestly, I thought about just ignoring her, pretending like I didn't see her. I was ahead of her in my line and could have just gotten my badge and then walked away…"

"But?"

"But then, you know, I thought about that conversation you and I had, back in the early days."

"Which one? There were many, as I recall," she grinned.

"True," she smiled, picking up her coffee and taking a sip, letting the liquid warm her as it went down her throat, into her stomach, while the mug warmed her hand. "It was the one about memories, remember? How I could go virtually anywhere in the city and still be haunted by memories of Alex?"

"Ahh, yes."

Maggie took a breath. "So I said to myself it was the same thing. I could either let Alex, or the presence of Alex, or the memory of Alex, have this  _ power _ over me, where I'd spend the next few days looking over my shoulder, scoping out the panels, hoping I wouldn't run into her… Or…"

"Or?"

She made a face. "Or I could be an adult and say hi."

Luisa chuckled. "So?"

"So, I put on a brave face and a smile and called out 'Danvers.'" She took another sip of coffee. "I think I startled her. She definitely wasn't expecting to see me there."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, I apparently can still read Alex Danvers like a book." She smiled. "She was flustered. Nervous. Because of me."

"And you're smiling about this."

She nodded. "After having a moment of panic about seeing her, it was nice to see she was having the same moment of panic. And she couldn't hide it the way I had." She grinned. "It's petty, but it felt good."

"Understandable," Luisa nodded.

"So we exchanged quick pleasantries, I got my badge and I left. I knew that the worst was over and that she'd probably try to avoid me, so I felt free and clear."

"And yet…"

Maggie laughed. "Punishment for my hubris, I guess." She sipped at her coffee again. "The following night, we got informed that Day 3, the Sunday, was cancelled, due to COVID-19 outbreaks in the state. So New Jersey shut down and California had closed its borders too."

"So you and Alex were stranded in Gotham?"

She paused. As much as she trusted Luisa, Kara's secret wasn't hers to tell, and she'd resisted the temptation to tell her over the last three years. She wasn't about to reveal it now. "Well, you remember that Alex works for a government agency, right?"

"Right."

"Well, she and Supergirl are good friends."

"Right, right, I remember. So she called in a favour?"

"I guess. She texted me on Saturday night, after we got the news about the convention ending early, to see if I needed a lift, said that Supergirl herself had asked about me."

"Oh, that must have been lovely! What a nice person she seems to be, remembering you after all these years."

Maggie forced a smile. "Yeah, she's just great," she said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "So the next day, long story short, Alex's boss and my captain have been arguing with the governor to allow us to be deemed essential workers, then allowed to be flown in by Supergirl."

"Right," Luisa nodded.

"And then they told me that I'd have to be in quarantine for two weeks at a, uh, a secure government facility. In some kind of cell."

"Oh dear."

"Exactly! So I said forget that, I'll take my chances in Gotham. And Alex tells her boss and he just loses it, telling her that I am to be brought in or she'll be court-martialed."

"This guy sounds delightful."

"Right? Ugh." She took another drink of her coffee. "So I'm standing there, challenging her and Supergirl to just  _ try _ to take me in without a warrant, when my captain calls me."

"Ah, and she instructs you to listen to them?"

"Yeah."

"So… I can't see too much, but it doesn't seem like you're in a cell. You look like you're outside."

She laughed weakly. "Yeah."

"Maggie, where are you?"

"Well, I couldn't go home because my roommate, you remember, Barb?"

"Right, yes, the officer from Metropolis?"

"Yeah, well I couldn't go home and potentially infect her."

She nodded.

"So, uh, Alex had proposed another solution."

"Oh, no. Don't tell me..."

She made another face. "Yeah, I'm living at Alex's apartment with her for two weeks."

"Dios mío."

"Exactly."

Her therapist took a deep breath. "So? How bad is it?"

Maggie laughed and stretched her feet out to rest on the flower box and she slouched a bit in the chair. "Luisa, I can't explain how weird it is."

"I can't even fathom it. You lived there, right? In that apartment?"

"Uh huh."

"While engaged to her."

"Yeah."

"Frankly, I'm surprised you didn't set up an appointment with me on Monday."

She grinned. "I'm holding up okay, I guess. It's surreal at times, though. Like… we played cards and I bet her a night of sleeping in the bed versus a week of laundry and I won, so when I slept in the bed… it was just like no time had passed. And, god, Luisa, it felt so good just to curl back up in that bed, with her scent all around me."

"Maggie…" she said, in a warning tone.

"Oh, don't worry, we had a major fight the next day," Maggie laughed.

"Oh dear."

"Yeah, and we got into things."

"How bad?"

"Oh, like,  _ I wanted to marry you _ bad."

Luisa sucked air in between her teeth.

"But I got her to  _ apologize _ for being angry with me. And we both admitted that we had made assumptions instead of communicating back then."

"During the fight?"

She shook her head. "The next day, when we actually spoke about it like two adult human beings." She smiled and sipped at her coffee.

"I'm impressed," Luisa said. "So it was a good talk?"

"It was, actually. And like… I even asked her what about being a mom appeals to her."

"You weren't kidding when you said you talked about it like adults!"

"I know! I'm kind of proud of myself for that one." She took another mouthful of coffee and swallowed. "It was interesting. And now, we're getting along pretty well."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, yesterday, she, uh, called in another favour with Supergirl."

"Oh?"

"Alex... " She laughed, thinking of her fondly. "She's kind of like a caged animal, you know? She needs to be moving. She slept horribly the night before last. I saw the bedsheets and I knew she'd slept badly and I was pretty sure it was due to the lack of exercise for a week. I said she needed to get a treadmill or something." She smiled. "And then she said maybe she could do something better."

"What's that?"

"Hang on," she said, putting her coffee down. "Can I send you a picture over this?"

"Mmm, I don't think so," she said.

"Oh, okay. Uh, hang on." She flipped through the photos Alex had sent her from their hike and picked the one of the two of them, the canyon spread out behind them. She quickly uploaded it to her rarely-used Facegram account and copied the link, pasting it in the video chat to Luisa.

"There," she said, "go ahead and click on that."

"Oh, my, isn't that a lovely photo!"

Maggie swapped over to it and smiled. "Yeah, it kind of is, isn't it?"

"So this was yesterday? Where was this? How did you get there?"

"So she called in a favour from Supergirl who flew us out to the national park and flew us back. She even scanned the area and made sure no one else was around, and then dropped us off and came back for us a few hours later."

"Well, what a wonderful thing for her to do!" Luisa exclaimed.

Sometimes Maggie really wished she wasn't such a good human being and could just tell Luisa about all her frustrations with Kara and Supergirl.

"So you had a nice hike?"

"Yeah," Maggie nodded. "It was really, really great. We talked about various things, you know, from her relationship with her girlfriend to whether or not she and I are friends now, to pandemic stuff, to other mundane things."

"Sounds like it was a good time."

Maggie took a breath. "But, uh, I haven't told you why I needed to talk to you so urgently."

Luisa frowned. "What is it?"

"I, uh… We were on the trail back, and it was getting dark. I was ahead of her and I, well, I stumbled. And she, uh, she caught me. And so we're just standing there, her arms around me, looking down at me, into my eyes…"

"Oh, no."

"God, Luisa, you would have been  _ so proud _ of me. She's stood that close to me so many times and it's usually ended in a kiss or something and so when she was standing there… I pushed her away and stepped back."

"Why? Didn't you want to kiss her?"

Maggie paused. "That is  _ not _ what I was expecting you to say."

Luisa smiled at her. "Gotta keep you on your toes." She steepled her fingers in front of her face. "So did you not want to kiss Alex?"

"Of course I did!"

"But you didn't."

"No, I didn't."

"So why didn't you?"

Maggie drained the rest of her coffee and set her mug down again. "I'm confused. That's the right thing to do, isn't it? To walk away?"

Luisa shrugged. "Tell me why you didn't kiss her."

_ Therapists, _ Maggie thought to herself as she attempted to not roll her eyes. "Well, first, Alex is in a relationship. I'm not going to be the reason she cheats on her girlfriend. You know about all my baggage from Emily."

Luisa nodded.

"So I'm not going to do that to Alex."

"All right. Why else?"

"Well, it would make the rest of this week super awkward."

"Mm hmm. Any other reasons?"

Maggie sighed. "She still wants to be a mom."

"Ah, there we go. That's the real reason, I gather?"

"I really wanted to, but there was her girlfriend and then all this panic around the rest of the quarantine… and yes, just because she might want to kiss me doesn't mean that she doesn't still want kids. We're still incompatible." She slunk down in her chair again.

"Well, Maggie, you're right."

"About what?"

"My being proud of you."

Maggie quirked a grin. "Thanks," she said, just a hint of sarcasm lacing the remark.

"So if she still wants kids and you still don't want them, where can this go?"

"Yeah. I know. Nowhere." She made another face.

Luisa smiled. "So you did the right thing, for  _ all _ those reasons."

She exhaled. "Yeah. And now I know that I'll be able to resist temptation again. But, like… it's so weird. We broke up not because we didn't love each other, not because we weren't attracted to one another, but because of this one  _ stupid  _ incompatibility."

"And?"

"And," she said, slowly, "it feels like no time has passed, sometimes. Luisa, just being in the apartment feels totally normal, most of the time. It's like all these habits from three years ago are coming back to me."

"Mmm, that's normal," she said. "You're back in a space you spent a lot of time in, so it makes sense that your mind and your body are both acclimating to it."

"And her. I'm acclimating to her, too. Her presence, her scent, her laugh…"

"Well, so long as you don't throw yourself at her in the next, uh, eight days, I'm sure you'll live."

"You're always just so very helpful, aren't you?" Maggie teased.

Luisa grinned. "So. Are you friends?"

"I think so," she said. "She said she wants to kick my ass at pool again when the pandemic is over."

"Well, that's an interesting sentiment…"

Maggie smiled. "It's part of how we fell in love. Over pool and pizza and beer and aliens."

Luisa chuckled. "You two certainly had a very… unique courtship."

"We sure did. And, honestly, Luisa, I'm glad that we've managed to find our friendship again. I, uh… I once told her that I didn't want to imagine my life without her in it… before we were dating."

Luisa raised an eyebrow. "Before you were dating?"

She nodded. "I didn't think she was ready to date, we were in different places, you know? But I knew that I wanted… no, I knew that I  _ needed _ this amazing, brilliant, funny, gorgeous woman in my life."

"And now?"

"And now," she exhaled, "now that I've lived three years without her, now I'm even more certain that I need Alex Danvers in my life again. I really don't ever want to lose her again, Luisa."

Her therapist looked at her with narrowed eyes. "You be careful with your heart, Maggie."

She sighed. "I know. It's hard when she's mostly been so nice. Like there was this thing with my dad…"

"Oh no. What did he do?"

She shrugged. "He, uh, he emailed me. Asking if I was okay. Saying that he and my mother were fine and they hoped I was too."

"That must have been very difficult to read."

Maggie chuckled. "Well, yeah, about that…"

"What?"

"I saw his name in my inbox and Alex noticed me just freezing at that. And asked what was wrong. So I showed her my phone… and she just offered to take care of it."   
"How?"

"She offered to read it and reply or delete it or whatever and so she read it and told me basically what he had said and I asked her to write back to him to just say yes, I'm fine, thanks, and then send it… and then delete both his message and my reply from my mail app. And she did it without hesitation. No nervousness, no nothing. She just… swooped in and saved me from my dad."

"That was kind of her."

"No, that was  _ amazing  _ of her," Maggie said. "What was  _ kind  _ of her was holding me in her arms while I sobbed," she said, blinking back tears. "Everyone deserves to have a friend like Alex and I think I'm really lucky that our paths crossed again. Because… I'll take it. I'll take a friendship with her."

"Even if you want more."

"The friendship is more important than… the other stuff."

"Maggie, this was the woman you were going to marry."

"You think I don't know that?" she snapped. She exhaled. "I'm sorry."

Luisa nodded in acknowledgement. "I know you know that. I just want  _ you  _ to know that it's okay if you can't have a friendship with her."

"But I  _ want _ one."

"If you think you can have a friendship with her, without wanting all the other stuff… then go for it. And I'll be here if it goes horribly awry."

She sighed. "Do you think it will?"

Luisa shrugged. "I think you two need to understand where your boundaries are. Alex standing there in front of you, looking like she's about to kiss you? That must have crossed several boundaries. Her holding you while you cry? That's crossing some line for sure."

"I guess you're right." She took a deep breath. "So avoid crossing lines. Get through this quarantine. Then we'll see how our friendship goes."

"Sounds like a plan to me," she replied. "Speaking of quarantine, is there any sign that either of you are sick?"

"No, actually, which is nice. Alex says that symptoms mostly appear between the 5-7 day mark, and today's Day 7, so I guess we can say that it's looking good. It's still possible to be asymptomatic and carrying it or to not develop symptoms for a full two weeks, but Alex seems to think we're probably okay."

"Well, at least there's that," Luisa said.

Maggie nodded. "The whole pandemic thing is pretty terrifying, not going to lie. Are you doing okay?"

They chatted a bit about the pandemic and such until their time was up.

"Feeling better?" Luisa asked.

Maggie exhaled. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think I'm in a better place than I was before we chatted."

"Great," Luisa smiled. "Now, remember to keep doing your yoga to keep yourself centered, don't throw yourself at Alex, and just keep calm, because you'll be home soon."

She laughed. "Thanks, Luisa. Appreciate your time, as always. I'll keep you posted."

"Sounds good, Maggie. Have a good weekend."

"You too."

She ended the call and sat back, pulling her earphones out and wrapping them around the phone. She could do this. She picked up her empty mug and stood, stretching for a moment, before heading back inside.

***

That night, they'd argued over what to watch. They'd both agreed on a movie, but not  _ which  _ movie.

"I've wanted to see  _ Inception  _ forever," Maggie had argued.

"But you've never seen the  _ Kill Bill _ movies??  _ EVER? _ "

She'd rolled her eyes. "I don't like Tarantino, okay?"

"But you like Uma Thurman. I know you think she's hot."

"Danvers, I'm not going to watch two full movies that are excessively violent just because I find Uma Thurman attractive."

"Did I mention Lucy Liu is in this, too? And is a serious badass?"

"Alex."

She'd thrown her head back in obvious frustration. "I promise you, these are amazing movies!"

"But I don't  _ want _ to watch them."

Alex's shoulders had slumped. "Fine. Tonight,  _ Inception _ , but tomorrow, the first  _ Kill Bill _ . And if you don't like it, fine, we don't have to watch the second one."

Maggie had raised an eyebrow at her.

"What?"

"That sounds suspiciously like a  _ compromise _ , Alex. Are you feeling okay? Do I need to take your temperature?" she'd teased.

"Smartass."

So they'd made a big bowl of popcorn, gotten a couple of bottles of beer and sat down on the couch. Alex took the side of the couch with the chaise portion, as she was prone to doing, while Maggie sat on the middle cushion, putting the bowl of popcorn between them.

It wasn't a short movie, but Maggie enjoyed it. It had, unfortunately, lost Alex as an audience member about three-quarters of the way through as she fell asleep.

_ Guess some things don't change, _ Maggie had thought to herself as the credits rolled.  _ Now how am I going to get her to the bed? _

She put the empty popcorn bowl on the coffee table and turned to face Alex.

"Danvers."

Nothing.

"C'mon, Danvers, time to get up to go to bed."

"Mmph."

"Alex, you've got to get up and go to bed."

"Mmph," she replied more loudly, frowning, her brow furrowing.

"Are you telling me you want to sleep on the couch?"

"Mmm hmm," she hummed.

Maggie thought about that. "So I can take the bed?"

"Mmm hmm," Alex said again.

She saw no reason to argue. "Okay, Danvers, you win. I'll sleep in the bed. You have a good night, okay?"

"Mmm."

With that, she smiled fondly at her and turned off the television. She got ready for bed in the bathroom and got her charging cable and went up to the side of the bed that wasn't Alex's and plugged it in and then got her phone charging.

She went back into the kitchen and shut out the lights there before coming back into the living room. She pulled a blanket from the back of the sofa and lightly draped it over Alex, who was clad in just leggings and a tank-top.

"Sleep well, Alex," she whispered, resisting the urge to plant a kiss on her forehead.

With that, she walked up to the bed and crawled in, letting herself luxuriate in the familiar scent and the soft sheets. She was asleep minutes later.


	9. Day 8

Maggie woke up slowly. For a moment, in that space between awake and asleep, she felt loved. She could smell Alex nearby and the bed was warm and cozy. She slipped her left arm under the sheets, searching for Alex's body, so she could spoon her, wrap her arm securely around her waist, bury her nose in her neck, bring her legs up to fit against the backs of Alex's thighs.

But there was no Alex to be found.

Maggie opened her eyes, blinking, confused. Where was… 

_ Oh. _

She took a deep breath.  _ Oh. _

Right. She was at Alex's. Alex had fallen asleep on the couch. She'd stolen the bed.

She rolled over onto her back and exhaled.  _ Right. Day… 8?  _ She thought about it. It was Sunday, right?  _ Yeah. Day 8. _

Maggie sat up, not seeing Alex in the small apartment. It was about 7:30. She looked around. Alex wasn't on the couch and the blanket was in its normal spot, folded over its back.

She heard the toilet flush.

_ Ah. _

She got out of bed and stretched, yawning. Once again, it had been an amazing night of sleep and dreams filled with images of Alex. She doubted Luisa would approve of her sleeping in the bed, given how she'd woken up. She was making the bed when Alex came out of the bathroom.

"Did I wake you?" she asked, noticing Maggie.

She shook her head. "Nah, I just woke up." She paused. No, she shouldn't tell Alex that she'd been groping for her in bed. That was not something to say to your ex-fiancée. No matter how much you wanted to see her reaction to it. "You sleep okay on the couch? How's your neck?"

Alex nodded. "A bit sore," she admitted, her right hand moving to the back of her neck and squeezing the muscles there. "Did you even  _ try _ to get me to go to bed?"

Maggie laughed and picked up the decorative pillow from the floor and put it on the now-made bed. "I'll have you know I did try to get you up, but you absolutely insisted on sleeping on the couch."

Alex narrowed her eyes at her.

"I swear, Danvers. I mean, I didn't try  _ too _ hard, but I gave it an honest shot."

"All right, I believe you. I was pretty comfortable during the movie, so maybe you're telling the truth. Still, that's a free night in the bed for you…"

Maggie put her hands on her hips. "Is this your way of guilting me into making breakfast?"

Alex grinned just a shade too innocently. "Maybe?"

She rolled her eyes. "Wanna learn how to make an omelette?"

"Yes," Alex said, with an emphatic nod.

***

The omelettes didn't come out too badly. Alex's was perhaps a little more well done and crispy than Maggie herself would have liked, but at no time did the smoke detector go off, so Maggie considered that a win.

"Anything planned for today?" Alex asked.

She shrugged, finishing the last bite of her omelette. "Not really," she said. "Maybe more reading. You? Anything for work?"

"I'm actually almost out of paperwork," she chuckled. "So no, nothing work-related. I was hoping maybe Kara could fly me -- or us -- somewhere, but it's supposed to rain."

She nodded.

"So maybe I'll do that 1500 piece puzzle I ordered that arrived on Thursday."

Maggie had forgotten about that. "Was that really just the other day?"

Alex nodded.

"Is it just me, or does time feel  _ very _ off?"

"Oh, it's not just you. It's been a week since we started quarantine but it feels like months."

Maggie tilted her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "Gee, thanks, Danvers," she said, the sarcasm dripping from each syllable.

Alex's eyes widened almost comically. "Oh god, no, sorry, no, I mean, sorry, just…" She exhaled. "Just forget I said anything. I'm sorry."

She laughed, enjoying how she could fluster Alex so easily. "It's okay," she said, "I'm teasing. I get it."

Alex tossed a sprig of parsley at her, which didn't even make it past her own plate. She cleared her throat. "So, uh, how do you feel about puzzles?"

She smiled. "I could do a puzzle." She paused. "One condition, though."

"What's that?"

"If you get pissed off and shove the pieces around, you're the one who cleans it up." She was grinning, her dimples showing.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm sorry for the Pandemic thing," she said. "Again."

"Good," she teased.

***

Maggie came out of the bathroom, having changed out of her pajamas, and saw Alex was typing on her phone at the dining room table.

"Kelly?" she guessed.

"Yeah."

"How is she?"

Alex looked up and looked back down at her phone. "Annoyed."

Maggie made a face. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Okay." She paused, trying not to feel a bit slighted that Alex didn't want to talk to her about it, although she didn't particularly want to chat about Kelly. "More coffee?"

Alex looked back up at her with a ridiculous amount of gratitude on her face. "That would be amazing, yes, please."

"Sure thing, Danvers."

"Thank you."

She busied herself in the kitchen and soon heard a phone being tossed on to the table, followed by a loud sigh. But Alex didn't want to talk about it, so she didn't ask.

From behind, she heard the scraping of the chair against the floor and then Alex's footsteps come towards the kitchen. She heard the stool move and Alex sighed again. She hid her smile and turned, an eyebrow raised.

"Okay, yes, I do want to talk about it, because she's being ridiculous."

Not a hundred percent sure she wanted to talk about Kelly, but willing to do so if it meant regaining Alex's friendship, she nodded. "What's going on?"

She sighed again. "She wants to  _ see _ me."

Maggie laughed at the very notion. "What about quarantine?"

"Right?!"

"Like, she understands this thing is really contagious, right?"

"Yeah, I explained the R0 to her and all that stuff. She still wants to see me."

"I thought she was smart."

Alex gave her a look. "She is."

"Then how does she expect you to maintain quarantine but still see her?"

She blew out a breath. "She, uh, she wants me to go stay with her. While you stay here."

Maggie frowned. "But then you risk catching it from her  _ and _ she risks catching it from you." She furrowed her brow. "And that would be two more weeks of quarantine, right?"

"Exactly!" Alex slumped forward onto the counter.

"Does she not understand that people are  _ dying _ from this?"

Another sigh. "She said that since I'm not showing any symptoms and she's been quarantined for a week already, we should be fine."

"Is that true?"

She shrugged. "Depends how quarantined she's been and if either of us are infected with symptoms that are just late to present, or if either of us are infected and asymptomatic."

"So it could be true, but there's still a lot of unknowns?"

"Right." She sighed. "She also said that living together for two weeks would be a nice trial run."

Something in Maggie's stomach lurched, but she persevered. "Well," she said, exhaling, "it's not exactly living together. When you live together, you can, you know,  _ go outside _ and do stuff. Have a few minutes to yourself."

"That's what I said." Alex straightened up, punctuating the statement with a flourish of her right hand. "And now she's annoyed."

"Uh, not that it's really my place, Danvers, but I think she's being unreasonable," Maggie said, thinking about it more. "That would be three weeks in a row that you haven't had like any alone time." She snorted. "Does she even  _ know _ you?" She froze at Alex's look. "Sorry, sorry, my bad."

"I wish I could be mad at that, but…" She sighed. "Like, _you_ know I need time to myself. _Kara_ knows. Hell, _Winn_ _and James_ knew that about me. I don't know why my girlfriend doesn't get it." She snorted. "You'd think that's the kind of thing James would have warned her about."

She took a breath. "She probably just misses you, you know. A lot."

"Well, that's a problem, because I clearly don't miss her as much as she misses me." Alex put her right elbow on the counter and supported her chin in her hand. "That's a problem, right?"

Maggie shrugged. "I… am probably not the person to chime in on relationship issues with you and Kelly."

Alex sat up again. "Maggie, I'm sorry, I just… I didn't think."

"No, I mean, it's fine," she said. "You, uh, you're used to talking to Kara about things, I guess."

She nodded.

"Speaking of, have you told Kara about this latest, uh, idea of Kelly's?"

"I did text her about it, but I haven't heard her respond yet. She's probably off rescuing someone from something," she said, slightly grumpy in her tone.

"What do you think she'll say?"

"Well, you know Kara," she said. "She'd probably encourage me to do it, because, you know,  _ romance _ and all that."

Maggie gave a tight smile. "I do seem to recall a certain Valentine's Day…"

"She wanted me to bring you roses, originally, did you know that?" Alex chuckled.

"No, but of course she did. She's Kara." She turned around at the sounds the coffee-maker was making and got out the mugs for each of them. "So how did you leave it with Kelly?"

"I said that it would be going against medical advice and, potentially, the governor's orders."

"Ah."

"What?"

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head, surprised that Alex had picked up on the slight judgement she'd had in her tone.

"No, no, I heard that. Maggie, that's literally the truth."

"Yeah, but that's also passing the buck, Danvers."

"What do you mean?"

She took a breath and turned back around. "If you don't want to be with her in quarantine, Alex, you just have to tell her that. Be honest. Don't blame it on doctors or the governor."

"I can't do that, she'd be really hurt," Alex muttered.

She turned back to the coffee and poured them each a cup and got the honey out for Alex, pouring in a generous amount of it before stirring it.

"You should be honest with her, Alex," she said, turning back and handing Alex her mug.

"Thanks," she said, hefting the mug. "I don't want to hurt her."

"Seems to me," Maggie said, picking up her own mug, "that she's already hurting because she misses you."

"That makes me feel even worse."

"I know. Which is why I think it's important that you tell her." She shrugged. "In every relationship I've ever been in, as awful and scary as it's been to tell my partner what I wanted, when I knew she didn't want that…" She trailed off, realizing what she was saying. She took a breath. "It can be really hard. And I know you know that."

Alex looked down. "Oh yeah," she breathed. "I know."

"But, uh… Sometimes, you just have to do it and if it's a turning point in your relationship or, uh, maybe a dealbreaker, it's still better to be honest, isn't it?"

She looked up at Maggie. "You know, I've nearly died. A lot."

Maggie blinked at the non sequitur. "I mean, I've gathered, yeah."

"But I mean, I've looked death in the eye. Stood in a line of people, about to be killed by a firing squad."

Maggie couldn't help her gasp.

"I mean, I've been to alien worlds, other universes, and nothing I have ever,  _ ever _ experienced in my entire life has hurt more than… than  _ that  _ conversation." She swallowed. "With you."

Maggie tore her eyes from Alex and looked down at her coffee mug, instead. "Same," she said, her voice hoarse. She blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the tears that were unexpectedly forming. "But, uh," she forced herself to say, "we… we both moved on, right? We, uh… we had that talk and we knew that, um, what we… what we wanted was different." She couldn't bear to look up at Alex and see the confirmation on her face.

But there was a pause. A long pause.

She looked up.

Alex had her elbows on the counter, holding her head in her hands. "Doesn't mean it didn't hurt," she finally said, roughly. "That it wasn't hard for me."

It all clicked. "And so you want to avoid having the same kind of conversation with Kelly," Maggie said, putting the pieces together.

Alex lifted her head, her face still wet with tears. She nodded, her lips tight, then swiped at her face with the cuff of her sleeve to dry it.

Maggie felt a lump in her throat. That Alex would be so open, so raw and vulnerable with her… She hadn't seen this Alex in years and it opened up a part of her she'd thought had long-since healed. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

"It's not your fault," she said, picking up her mug and taking a sip.

"No, I mean… for  _ then _ ." And she was. She was so sorry that she wasn't enough for Alex, that Alex needed more. It had taken a long time for her to recognize, after their breakup, after her parents abandoning her, that she  _ was _ enough and if someone else didn't think so, that was  _ their _ problem. Not hers. But she was still sorry about how things had ended, back then.

She put the mug down and took a breath. "Me too. I'm sorry that, uh, that what we want is too different."

There was a long silence and Maggie's thoughts whirred. Finally, she took a sip of her coffee. "So." She cleared her throat. "I think you should tell her. Telling is better than not telling."

Alex nodded. "Thanks, for, um, you know… talking about this with me. I know it can't be easy."

"No, it's not," she admitted. "But, uh… that's… that's what friends are for, right?"

Alex gave her a half-smile. "Friends." She lifted her mug out to Maggie.

She smiled back and took a step forward, clinking her mug against Alex's. "Friends."

***

Later, after Alex chatted with Kara, Maggie poured them more coffee and they sat down at the dining table to assemble the puzzle.

"Geez," Maggie muttered, "I didn't realize 1500 pieces was this many pieces."

Alex grinned. "So, we should…" She paused. "I mean, uh, what I like to do is get the edges organized first." She looked over at Maggie. "Is that how you do puzzles?"

She laughed. "I appreciate the gesture, Danvers, thank you for checking with me. I do, indeed, do edges first."

"Thank God."

Together, they separated the edges from the interior pieces, also tossing like-coloured pieces from the interior together. Soon, they were able to start fitting together the borders of the puzzle. It was a gorgeous shot of a river in Scotland.

Maggie picked up the box and looked at the description. "Where's Kelso?"

"Beats me," Alex said, looking for another edge piece to add to the bottom edge.

Maggie looked it up on her phone. "So this is the Tweed river, the photo taken south of Kelso, in the southern part of Scotland, in a region called the Borders. Wow, it's almost in England." She looked at the picture on the box again. "It's beautiful, don't you think?"

Alex looked up from the puzzle and smiled. "Yeah. I like how the water is rushing and that contrasts with the quiet steadiness of the grass and the tree."

"Yeah, there's something about it that works really well, right?"

She nodded. "Like even though the water is obviously fast-moving, because of the white water we see, it just works so well in this image. The water is why I picked this puzzle on the website. I was just drawn to it."

"Nice," she said, putting the box top on the table so that they could both see the finished image as a guide. "So, uh, what did Kara say?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Exactly what I thought she'd say. She thought it was really sweet of Kelly to volunteer to be quarantined with me."

"Fun."

She sighed. "Yeah. I think I managed to explain to her that I didn't want to be quarantined with Kelly. She'll support me in whatever I do, though. Like always."

"Must be nice to have that kind of understanding."

She shrugged. "Not sure she understands it, exactly, but she supports me, so that's something."

"So are you going to tell Kelly?"

Alex studied the pieces on the table and Maggie thought she was actually going to ignore her question.

"I think I'll tell her something between the truth and the very real concerns," she said, finally.

"Yeah?"

She nodded, snapping a piece into place. "I'll tell her I don't feel like being quarantined for three weeks in a row, even if she does have more space at her apartment."

"I think that's a good call," Maggie said, matching two pieces together.

"And if she protests, I'll remind her that the governor isn't going to want me mingling with the population."

"Okay," she nodded, "as long as the primary reason is your feelings about it."

"Yeah," Alex exhaled. "She might not want to hear it, but you're right. She deserves to know how I'm feeling."

"Proud of you, Danvers," she smiled.

"Stick it in your ear, Sawyer," she teased.

***

After a late lunch, they'd gotten back to the puzzle. The border was fully assembled and Alex was working on the river on the right side of the puzzle, while Maggie worked on the grassy field on the left.

Alex's phone buzzed, signifying an actual phone call.

Maggie watched as Alex picked it up. She showed her the caller ID. It was Kelly.

"Back soon."

Maggie nodded and watched as Alex answered the phone and headed out onto the balcony. "Hi, babe," she said, before shutting the door behind her.

She sighed, wondering if she'd given Alex the right advice. Telling the truth, so long as it was  _ important _ was pretty much always right, right? And if it caused issues in their relationship, well, those issues needed to be addressed if the relationship was to survive, right?

Maggie picked up her phone, wondering if she should email Luisa. Instead, she opened up Facegram to scroll through her feed of people she barely knew and rarely spoke to any longer. On opening the app, she was brought to her profile and she noticed two likes on her latest photo -- one from Luisa and one from Alex. She snorted. That dork.

She smiled at the photo of them and wondered if it would be weird if she printed it out and framed it once she got home. Probably weird. But she might do it anyway. She loved it. Alex looked so carefree and happy. She closed her eyes and could feel the sun on her face, could feel Alex close to her, could feel how full her heart felt. Yeah. She'd print it out anyway.

Out of curiosity, she navigated to Alex's profile and skimmed through her photos. She saw lots of photos of Alex and Kara, and there was one of her and Kelly. Maggie opened it up, looking at the full-size version. They were both dressed up and the description said #pulitzer. Maggie nodded. That was right. Kara had won the Pulitzer Prize for her investigative journalism. She'd almost forgotten. She kept scrolling and saw one of Winn, of James, some people she didn't recognize.

It was odd, she thought. Just one photo of Kelly. It wasn't that Alex posted often, but it still seemed strange.

She kept scrolling and saw her own face smiling back at her. She'd gone back far enough to see photos from their relationship. She'd liked all of them, back in the day, as the little heart icon was lit up for each of them. They were all in reverse order, of course. There was the shower. That girls' night at Kara's with Lena and Sam. The picture of the two of their hands with their engagement rings.

She cleared her throat and closed the app. How could she have come so close to finding someone and then lost it all? She sighed and put her phone to the side and concentrated on looking for pieces related to the tree in the puzzle.

Alex came in a few minutes later, a little damp from the light rain.

"Well?"

She made a face. "She didn't like it, but she accepted it," she said.

"There you go."

Alex put her phone down and ran her hands through her hair, trying to get rid of the excess water. She wiped her hands on her jeans and sat down. "Well, it wasn't all that easy to convince her that it wasn't because I didn't want to leave you."

"Excuse me?"

"She's, uh, apparently not as cool as she said she was with my having invited you here as an option."

"Alex, I'm sorry. Look, I'll just go to the DEO, I--"

"You're not going to the DEO."

Maggie stopped and looked at her.

"I apologized for taking an action that affected her and told her that I would be more considerate in the future. And I explained that, of all the people to be stuck with during quarantine, I  _ probably _ wouldn't have chosen you."

Maggie chuckled. "Yeah, same."

"I also said that we were making the best of it and things are good. And, frankly, she has to trust me."

Maggie was impressed. "Really? And she took that well?"

"She took a minute to think about it, but yeah. She knows that her being jealous of the time we're spending together is more about her issues than about you and me. She even admitted that the time apart is really wearing her down and making her think more with her heart than her head."

"Wow."

"I know, it was a good call, in the end. I mean, I need to make sure I'm calling more often, but I think we can do another week."

She nodded. "Well, I'm glad to hear that telling her the truth helped. It sounds like you're in a good place."

"I guess, yeah."

"You guess?"

"Well, the whole jealousy thing rubbed me the wrong way."

"Danvers," Maggie laughed, "you're trapped here with your ex-fiancée for 14 days. I think she's allowed to be jealous. I mean, I would be jealous if I were dating someone and she was shacking up with an ex."

"We're not shacking up! We're quarantining!" Alex protested.

"There's really not a big difference between them," she said, mildly.

She considered that. "You're  _ super _ annoying when you're right."

She chuckled. "You know, it's a shame we didn't work out."

Alex frowned. "Huh?"

"I'd have fit right in.  _ Super _ girl,  _ super _ cheater and  _ super _ annoying." She flashed a grin.

Alex groaned. "Super  _ duper _ annoying," she said, getting up. "Beer?"

"Sure."

Maggie smiled as she watched Alex go to the fridge. Maybe this friendship thing would work out okay for them after all.


	10. Day 9

Alex stepped out onto the balcony with her coffee and smiled. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, allowing herself to enjoy the weather. It was a lovely day out. The sun was shining yet, as it was still March, it wasn't overwhelmingly warm.

She walked over to the railing and gazed out upon the city, feeling good about, well, basically everything.

Just over a full week into quarantine, she and Maggie still weren't presenting with any symptoms, which made her more than a little optimistic.  _ We've  _ also  _ managed not to kill each other _ , she grinned. Not only that, but Alex had finally managed to clear out the vast majority of her DEO paperwork, meaning that she didn't have much to do to start out the week. She was sure more stuff would crop up, including new safety protocols surrounding the virus, but she'd be ready for it. She'd also texted Kara the night before, who would be bringing by some more groceries later that day. And, after consulting with Maggie, Alex had asked her to come over later in the week for another attempt at Sister Night, so there was that to look forward to.

Even things with her and Kelly were back on track, given their chat the day before. Alex had apologized for making an important decision without talking to Kelly about it first and Kelly had apologized for starting to, in her words, "freak out". Alex sipped at her coffee and smiled, watching the city wake up. Next week, she'd be out there, walking to work, going for a run, getting her own groceries. She was really looking forward to the prospect of leaving her apartment as she pleased.

As much as she was enjoying spending time with Maggie, and she was, she was eager for her real life to resume.

"Beautiful," Maggie murmured from somewhere behind her.

"Isn't it?" Alex asked, as Maggie joined her at the railing. She tried not to look at her, as she was in full-on early-morning Maggie mode. Her hair was mussed, her face was soft, her eyes still not quite alert. She kept her eyes forward, at the city streets that were getting busier with each passing moment.

"It's definitely a nice view. Particularly in the morning, with the light." She took a sip of her own coffee. "I miss it, occasionally."

There was a light pang in her chest at that. "No view at your place?"

"Yeah, but it's south-facing. I enjoy it. But it's not the same as this."

Alex nodded. It was a nice view. She'd often thought about moving, over the last few years, mostly to get rid of the lingering ghosts of her and Maggie living there together. But she'd never find a cheap studio like hers with a balcony and view, a fireplace and a washer/dryer in the bathroom. At least, not one that was so close to the DEO. It allowed her to save money every month, money which would eventually go to purchasing a home, either a condo or a house.

She took another drink of her coffee. Somehow, chasing away the ghosts seemed less important after these last few days with Maggie. If they could have an actual friendship after quarantine, then maybe those memories that cropped up every so often would hurt less. Maybe even new memories would form. She turned to Maggie with a smile. "Wanna work outside today?"

She nodded. "That'd be nice. We could get that folding card table out of storage and put it out here."

"That's what I was thinking." Alex gave her a half-smile. "How did you remember I had a card table in storage?"

Maggie blinked at that and shrugged. "I have no idea," she confessed. "That kind of thing is happening a lot."

"What, just random memories?"

"Mmm, more like memories that I'm not even aware that I still remember. I went for the scissors in the kitchen the other day by opening the second drawer and was confused because they weren't there."

"Right, I moved them to a utility drawer," Alex nodded.

"But they  _ used _ to be there." She shrugged. "It's kinda like muscle memory, I guess."

"Weird for you?"

She gave a soft chuckle. "Definitely. Some things just come roaring back, you know?"

"It's like that song."

"Which?"

Alex cleared her throat. "It's so hard to believe but it's all coming back to me, it's all coming back to me now!" she sang, exaggeratedly, doing an incredibly poor impression of Céline Dion's song.

Maggie snorted. "Well, not  _ quite _ like that, but sorta, yeah," she grinned.

Alex grinned back. It was going to be a good day. She could feel it.

***

Alex was reviewing the final draft of the DEO's protocols for handling the pandemic when Maggie brought her a coffee.

"What's this?"

"It's coffee, Danvers."

She laughed. "I mean, what for?"

Maggie shrugged. "Your eyes were starting to glaze over. You still looking at the new protocols for the virus?" she asked, sitting down with her own mug.

She sighed. "Yeah. The head of Environment and Safety has…" She blew out a breath. "Let's just say she's put together a very comprehensive plan."

"Well, that's good, right?"

"Yeah. But I'm definitely going to need the coffee," she said. "Thanks."

"Sure thing," she said, returning to her own work.

Sitting out on the balcony, having a coffee, while the sun shone down on them, as they quietly worked together, Alex wondered how things could be more perfect.

By seven, Alex was still only midway through the protocol review. It was a good thing that she'd done virtually all the other paperwork she'd had before this had hit her inbox. There were more than two hundred pages detailing the protocols for everyone from office workers, to field agents, and everything from missions to decontamination procedures.

Alex got up and stretched. Despite the long hours of work and being focused on reading and analyzing and editing things, she felt surprisingly good. She closed her laptop and headed inside.

Inside smelled delightful. Maggie had made a caesar salad and she was in the process of cooking spaghettini on the stove while the rest of their sauce they'd made the previous week was in another pot. Garlic bread, as yet untoasted, sat on a cookie sheet on the counter, and a bottle of red wine was out on the table.

"Oh my god," Alex breathed. "You…" She trailed off, realizing she'd been about to say that Maggie was her favourite person, which probably wasn't a great thing to even joke about. She cleared her throat and started again. "You are amazing, Maggie, thank you."

"Least I can do, Danvers. You wanna charge the laptops on the counter and then set the table?"

"Of course."

She put her own laptop next to Maggie's and fetched the chargers, plugging them in. Next, she carefully shifted the puzzle over on the dining table, then set their two places and brought the salad to the table as Maggie tasted the pasta to see if it was ready yet.

"Another minute or so," she confirmed.

"How do you tell?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how do you know it's just another minute and not like, three minutes?"

Maggie smiled at her. "C'mere."

As Alex walked over, Maggie fished out a couple of strands. "Here," she said, grabbing one from her fork and shaking it a bit to cool it before dropping it in Alex's palm. "Try it."

She did and found it was still a bit crunchy for her liking.

"See?" she said, after chewing on her own. "It's just  _ a bit _ crunchy still."

Alex nodded. "So you'll try it again in a minute?"

"Yeah," she said. "Ooh, that reminds me." She grabbed a measuring cup from the drawer and scooped out about a half cup of the pasta water and poured it into the sauce. "It'll help thicken the sauce," she explained.

"Gotcha," she nodded. She really had no idea how Maggie just  _ knew _ all this stuff. "I'm going to miss your cooking  _ a lot _ ," she chuckled.

"I'll miss your appreciation for my cooking," she grinned, stirring the pasta again. "Okay, time to test it again."

Alex held out her hand and Maggie deposited a couple of strands of spaghettini in her palm. She tossed them back and forth between her palms for a moment, cooling them, before popping them in her mouth.

"See?" Maggie said, having tested a few strands on her own. "Just chewy, not crunchy, but not soft, either. We're almost at  _ al dente _ , but it'll keep cooking for a little bit in the pot, so we should pull it off the heat."

She nodded, watching Maggie turn off the burner and bring the pot to the sink. She filled the pot with cold water and then carefully dumped out the entire contents into the colander she'd placed there earlier. She grabbed a piece and chewed it thoughtfully. "Yep, pretty good," she said. "You wanna stir the sauce and then turn off the heat?"

"Sure," she said, picking up the wooden spoon Maggie had been using for the sauce and gave it a couple of quick stirs before turning the heat all the way off.

"Okay, now cover it and I'm going to put the pasta back in the pot to keep it warm and we can have our salad before the pasta."

Alex nodded and watched Maggie shake the colander thoroughly before putting the pasta back into the pot, adding a bit of olive oil before mixing it and letting it rest on the counter.

"So it doesn't stick," she explained.

"Oh, that's cool," Alex said.

"And, lest we forget, the garlic bread," Maggie said, turning on the oven and sliding the tray of bread on to the top rack. She set the timer for seven minutes.

Together, they headed to the table and Maggie mixed in the caesar dressing and tossed the salad, serving them both, while Alex poured them each a glass of wine.

"To the start of week two," Alex smiled, holding her glass aloft.

"Week two," she smiled back, clinking the glass, holding Alex's gaze.

She took a sip and dug into the salad. It tasted lovely, fresh and crisp, thanks to Kara's grocery delivery earlier in the day. "This is awesome," she said, without even having swallowed.

Maggie chuckled. "You wanna try that again  _ without  _ your mouth being full?"

Alex blushed lightly and smiled at her fondly as she chewed, thinking that Maggie would be great at chiding a kid for the same offense. "I said that this is awesome," she repeated, after swallowing. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she smiled back.

They ate quietly for a few minutes before the timer went off and Maggie went to get the bread while Alex started serving them the pasta and bringing their plates to the table.

It was absolutely divine. The fresh, crunchy garlic bread worked beautifully with the sauce. The pasta was perfectly done and held the sauce nicely.

"I am never going to be able to recreate something like this," Alex lamented.

"Sure you will, you helped make the sauce," Maggie pointed out.

"Something'll go wrong. I know it will."

"Well, maybe I can come over in a couple of weeks and we can try it again."

"I'd like that." She smiled. "Maybe after I kick your ass at pool?"

She laughed. "I love how you think I haven't improved at all in the last three years."

"Maggie, even if you improved by  _ a lot _ , you'd still be terrible. Do you  _ know _ how many times I tried to let you win?"

"Sure, sure, rub it in, Danvers," she grinned.

Alex considered things as she took a bite of the garlic bread. It felt oddly normal to talk to Maggie like this. It wasn't forced. It wasn't hesitant. They'd brought up the past without it hurting. If they could maintain this friendship, maybe things would be all right. She gazed at Maggie. And maybe if she could stop being reminded of how beautiful Maggie was, they could really have a true friendship.

***

It was close to 8:30 when Alex finished the dishes. They'd just sat down to continue work on the puzzle, with another glass of wine for each of them, when Alex's phone buzzed.

It was Kelly calling… and it was a video call, which was weird.

She answered it, a little perplexed. "Hey babe," she said, "you're on speaker. Let me get my headphones."

"Okay," Kelly said.

Alex stood and walked over to the counter where her laptop was, but didn't see her headphones. She frowned.

"Mags, you see my headphones today?"

"Over on your bedside table," she said, pointing.

"Ah, thanks." She jogged up to the bedroom area and plugged in her headphones. "And just a sec," she addressed Kelly, "I'm gonna go outside."

"Yeah."

"Don't you finish that without me," she warned Maggie as she walked by.

"Yeah, yeah," Maggie chuckled.

She smiled and let herself out onto the balcony. The evening was a bit cool, but she was wearing a cozy sweatshirt, so she didn't mind. It was refreshing. She and Maggie had brought the card table back in, along with the dining chairs they'd used all day, so Alex was left with the two canvas chairs she kept out there as furniture. She sat down in one and brought her phone up to her face, resting her elbow on the arm of the chair. "Hey," she smiled, "how's your day been?"

"Oh, I don't know," Kelly said, in a strange tone, "how about you tell me?"

Alex blinked. "What?"

Kelly flipped the camera to the rear-facing one and Alex's heart dropped clear into her stomach. Kelly was showing her what was on her computer screen. She was on Maggie's Facegram page. And right there, smack dab in the middle of the screen, was the full-size selfie of the two of them from the previous Friday, on the hiking trail.

She wondered  _ how  _ for a brief moment before it all became clear to her. She had been stupid enough to like Maggie's post. Kelly would have been able to easily see what she had liked. And so she had been led to the post through Alex's own actions. It was her fault. She took a breath. This was  _ not _ going to be a good conversation.

The camera flipped back. "What the hell is that, Alex?"

"I can explain," she began.

"You'd better. I mean, are you even  _ in  _ quarantine? Or are you just stringing me along?"

She paused, not understanding what she was hearing. "What?" she asked, her face showing her confusion.

"You heard me. Are you just keeping me in your pocket in case you can't work things out with  _ her _ ?"

The accusation hit Alex like a ton of bricks. "I… How could you think I would do that? That I  _ could _ do that?"

"You've done it before, Alex. I remember you telling me that you didn't tell  _ her _ you wanted to have kids for weeks. Weeks. You lied to her, strung her along, for weeks, before it all came to a head."

Alex closed her eyes. "That was different," she said. She took a breath and reopened her eyes, gazing at Kelly's face. She was angry. She'd never seen her this angry before.

"How? How is it different? And you two went hiking? I thought you were supposed to be in quarantine and that's why I can't see you. But it's okay for you to go  _ hiking _ ? In public?"

There were too many things she wanted to say, to refute. She decided to start with the most important thing. "Kelly," she said, firmly, "listen to me. I am not stringing you along. I am not trying to work things out with Maggie."

"Then explain the hiking."

She blew out a breath. "I hadn't really exercised in a week. I need to run or work out at the DEO or spar with K… uh, Supergirl, or  _ something _ . You know that about me, right?"

Kelly was silent.

"Well, I wasn't sleeping well and Maggie noticed--"

"How?"

"What?"

"How did your  _ ex-fiancée _ notice you weren't sleeping well?"

Alex gritted her teeth at the implication and tried to remain calm. "She saw the bedsheets the next morning at breakfast." She took a breath. "Kelly, she's literally sleeping 20 feet away from me. In the sofa bed."

"And yet she seemed to know your headphones were on your bedside table."

"Because she saw them from across the room!" she argued.

"Go on." Kelly's expression hadn't changed. She was still angry, her lips were tight, her brow furrowed.

"So I started thinking about outdoor activities. It was a nice day and it's like, why not go out to some secluded wooded area or a trail or something and get some fresh air and exercise?"

She remained silent. Alex sighed.

"So we went to the national park and went hiking."

"How did you get there?"

She paused. Should she tell her that Kara had brought them? No, better not bring up questions to do with Supergirl, she decided. "Uh, my bike. We took my bike."

"Together. On your bike. To which national park?"

"Uh, I think it's called Cleveland National Forest?"

"That's like, 40 miles away. You're telling me you drove, on your bike, with  _ her _ holding on to you, for 40 miles? To a trail you didn't even know would be empty? And then drove 40 miles back, after hiking several miles?"

She swallowed. "Yes."

"All for a hike. With your ex-fiancée."

"What, like I was just going to go without asking her if she wanted to join? That'd be a bit rude, don't you think?"

"Oh, god forbid you're  _ rude _ to her, but you can  _ lie _ to me? You told me you were doing  _ interviews _ for work."

She blew out a breath. "I'm sorry, Kelly," she said, "I shouldn't have lied."

"No, you fucking shouldn't have."

"I just didn't think you'd understand."

"You're damn right I wouldn't understand. I  _ still  _ don't understand."

Alex took the phone with her other hand and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," she said.

"You don't want to quarantine with me in my apartment that has more than one goddamn room, but you'll quarantine with  _ her  _ in your studio? You'll go hiking with  _ her _ ?"

She hung her head. "What do you want me to say? I already said I'm sorry."

"I want you to tell me that I am more important to you than  _ her _ ."

"Kelly, come on, you're my girlfriend. Of course you are."

"She was your  _ fiancée _ ."

"Yes. Yes. She  _ was _ my fiancée," Alex snapped, her irritation getting the better of her. "That was three years ago!"

"And?"

"And what? We're in a shitty situation and trying to make the best of it."

"Are you trying to get back together with her?"

Alex pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to remain calm. "Kelly, I am not trying to get back together with Maggie." She dropped her hand to her lap, knowing she was close to exploding at Kelly.

"How can I be sure?"

"How can you be sure?!" she shouted, losing any semblance of control over her temper. "Gee, let me think, can you just fucking trust your girlfriend?"

"I'm sorry, you mean the one who  _ lied  _ to me on Friday?"

"I said I was sorry!" She turned as she saw the drapes move behind one of her windows. Maggie stood there and raised an eyebrow. She must have heard Alex shouting. She held out her hand and waved it back and forth a couple of times.  _ It's fine, _ was what she meant to convey. Maggie nodded, letting the curtain fall back into place. "Look," she said, after a deep breath, slightly more calmly, "can you please understand that I am not trying to get back together with Maggie?"

"Does she want to get back together with you?"

"I don't fucking know, Kelly. You want me to go get her for you and have her answer?" she retorted.

"I don't want her staying with you anymore."

"Kelly, come on, be reasonable."

"I think it's  _ perfectly _ reasonable to want my girlfriend not to quarantine with her ex," she said, firmly. "So if you're not going to quarantine with me, then send Maggie to the DEO."

Alex narrowed her eyes. "Uh… are you trying to tell me who I can and cannot associate with?"

"No, I'm telling you that, as your girlfriend, I am not comfortable with you sharing your studio apartment with the woman you were going to marry. The woman who used to _live there_ _with you_ , no less."

She could feel herself digging in, becoming more stubborn with each passing moment. She did not take well to being told what to do. "I'm  _ not  _ sending her to the DEO. We're two adults and we're adjusting to this weird situation. And you have nothing to worry about."

Kelly shook her head. "You lied to me, Alex."

"Yes, I lied," she said, grandly. "I admit it. I lied about breaking quarantine. We didn't even see another human being," she said, noting to herself that,  _ technically _ , she wasn't lying, since Kara wasn't human. "I have  _ not  _ lied to you about my feelings for Maggie."

"What  _ are _ your feelings for Maggie?"

"Oh, Christ," she muttered.

"Well?"

"Well what? They're complicated. They always have been," she muttered.

"Are you still in love with her?"

Alex opened her mouth to say no, but paused for just a moment, searching her heart.

She leapt on it. "You are. Aren't you? You're still in love with her. Just fucking tell me the truth, Alex."

"Not… not like that," she said, shaking her head. "I… some part of me will always be in love with her. Just like you and your fiancée."

"Don't you  _ dare _ bring her into this conversation." It came across as she'd intended, as a threat.

"Are you telling me part of you won't always be in love with her?" she argued.

"She's  _ dead _ , Alex. It's not the same thing."

Something clicked for her. "Oh. Oh, I get it," she said, suddenly, leaning forward in the chair, resting her arms on her legs. "You think there's something going on with me and Maggie because  _ you _ would still be with  _ your _ fiancée if you could be."

Even with an imperfect picture over the video call, Alex could see Kelly's tears escape. She instantly felt badly. "Listen, Kelly, I'm sor--"

"No, just… No." She wiped at her eyes with her index finger and her thumb. "I'm not  _ projecting _ my feelings for her on to you and…  _ her _ ." She swallowed. "I'm just trying to get my girlfriend to put me and my feelings above her ex. And it doesn't seem like you want to do that."

"Kelly, there's nothing going on with us!"

"Prove it. Send her to the DEO."

"Absolutely not."

"Then come quarantine with me."

"No way, that puts you and I both at risk." She took a breath. "And I'm not going to do another week of quarantine, I'm sorry."

Kelly bit her lower lip for a moment. "Then I guess we don't have anything else to say to each other."

"Kelly, come on, I--"

"Goodbye, Alex."

The call ended.

"Fuck," Alex breathed. She dropped the phone on her lap and rubbed at her face with both hands, tiredly. She picked the phone back up and called Kelly back. Declined, straight to voicemail. "Kelly, what the hell did that mean? Goodbye? No, we're not done. I'm leaving my ringer on. Call me." She softened her tone. "Please. At any time. I'll answer. Because you're important to me. Love you." She hung up and stood up, pulling her earphones out of her ears and tucking them into a pocket. She took a deep breath and headed back inside.

She shut the door behind her and looked over at the table, where Maggie was working on the puzzle.

She turned to look up at her. "Everything okay?"

Alex snorted and went to the kitchen. She pulled out a tumbler and the whiskey.

"That good?"

She sighed. "Want some?"

"No, thanks."

Alex poured herself a healthy double shot of the liquid and took a rather large gulp, letting it burn its way down her throat. She put the bottle away and took her glass to the couch.

"What happened?" Maggie asked, quietly, still seated at the table.

She took another sip and put the glass on the coffee table. She exhaled and ran her fingers through her hair. "She saw the picture," she said, leaning forward, her elbows resting on her knees.

"What picture?"

"From, uh, from the hike."

"Shit, I'm so sorry, Alex, I shouldn't have posted it."

She shook her head. "It was me. It's because I liked it." She exhaled. "My fault." She made a dismissive hand motion in Maggie's direction, absolving her of responsibility.

"I'm still sorry," she said.

Alex just shrugged. "It's fine."

"Doesn't sound like it's fine."

Alex swallowed. She wasn't going to send Maggie to the DEO. She wasn't going to quarantine with Kelly. Neither option was workable in her mind. "It will be. It'll be fine." She exhaled, shakily. "It'll, uh, it'll blow over, I'm sure."

There was a long silence. Alex's mind was racing. Surely Kelly couldn't possibly be this unyielding. And did she really think that stuff about Alex stringing her along? She reached out and took another large mouthful of the alcohol. And what the fuck did  _ goodbye _ mean? It couldn't mean they were  _ over _ , could it? Over this stupid quarantine situation? How could she think she was trying to get back together with Maggie? They were incompatible, anyway. It would be pointless.

"Hey," a soft voice said, much closer than before. Maggie came around the couch from the left and sat next to her. "You want to talk about it?"

She shook her head. She not only didn't want to talk about it, she didn't even want to  _ think  _ about it.

"You want me to leave you alone?"

That hit her right in her chest. She turned to her, her chin quivering, her eyes filling with tears. She shook her head again.

Maggie, dear, steady, lovely, wonderful, reliable Maggie, reached out to her and Alex fell into her arms, letting the tears come. She cried in anger at Kelly and in fear of losing her girlfriend. She cried because she felt guilty that Maggie's arms felt so good around her. She cried because the one person she wanted to have a family with didn't want a family with her.

Through it all, Maggie held her close, stroking her hair, murmuring soft reassurances. "I've got you," she whispered. "I've got you, Alex."

After a while, she was just too tired to cry anymore, and went willingly when Maggie led her to bed. She plugged Alex's phone into the charger and tucked her in and, had she not been completely drained, she would have cried in sheer gratitude.

"Get some rest," she said, lightly stroking Alex's hair, pushing it behind her ear. "Okay?"

She nodded, pathetically. "Thanks," she whispered.

"That's what friends are for, Danvers," she smiled. "Remember?"

She gave a weak smile. "Friends."

Maggie smiled back and turned out the light. Alex was asleep moments later.


	11. Day 10

Alex awoke with a jerk and immediately checked her phone, the memory of the argument crashing down on her. It was most of what she'd dreamt about. But she had no messages from Kelly. She looked at the time and it was just past 7:30. She blinked and sat up. Maggie wasn't in the kitchen. The sofa bed was folded up.

_ Must be in the bathroom, _ she thought, getting out of bed and taking her phone with her to the kitchen to start the coffee. She stopped when she saw a note on the counter.

_ Alex, _

_ I'm so sorry for the stress I've put on you and Kelly. I asked Kara this morning to take me to the DEO. She's organized it so that no one else will be around me so I don't need to restart my quarantine, meaning I'll only be there for a few days. _

_ I never wanted to cause trouble for you. Even though I definitely wouldn't have chosen to do it, it was good to hang out together for a bit. Like I said, once upon a time, I don't want to imagine my life without you in it. Not again. _

_ Pool, sometime next week? $20 a game, like usual. _

_ Love, _

_ xo Maggie _

She dropped the note on the counter and spun around. The bathroom door was open, she wasn't in there. Her bags were gone. She blinked rapidly. "Maggie, you dummy," she breathed, her eyes tearing up again. "You didn't have to go and do that."

She tapped at her phone and hit the speed dial for Maggie.

"Danvers," she said, as though nothing was amiss.

"What did you go and do that for?"

"Good morning to you, too."

She rolled her eyes. "Maggie."

"What?"

"You didn't have to go to the DEO."

"Maybe not," she admitted, "but whatever is going on with you and Kelly, you need to work that out and you can't do that with me hovering around."

She opened her mouth to argue and then shut it. "There you go, being super annoying again." She could almost see Maggie's smile at her words.

"It's just for a few more days," she said. "I'll live."

Alex sighed. Maggie was entirely right on all counts. But she didn't  _ want _ Maggie to be right. She wanted Maggie  _ there _ . With her. "I, uh…" She blew out a breath. "Thank you," she said. "Not just for this, but for last night. For being here for me when I needed to talk to someone, too."

"Danvers, friends do for each other what they see needs to be done," she said.

"When did you get so wise?"

She chuckled. "That's a line from a book I read once as a kid. The line just stuck with me, because I think that's  _ exactly  _ what friends should do for one another."

She thought about it. "Well, you have been one hell of a good friend these past few days."

"You, uh, you've been a pretty good friend too," she said, "what with the writing to my dad and stuff."

She allowed herself a small smile. "Just did what I saw needed to be done."

There was an awkward silence for a moment. "Well, I'm gonna get settled here," Maggie said. "I just arrived about twenty minutes ago."

"Just missed you, I guess."

"Yeah, we were careful to try not to wake you. You needed your sleep."

She nodded. "Yeah."

"So, you gonna call Kelly?"

Alex blew out a breath. "Yeah. Still have all those protocols to review too, but that'll have to wait."

"Okay, well, I'm just gonna be working. Call or text or whatever if you need to talk."

She smiled. "Same for you. It might be a bit lonely."

"Oh, I don't know, after spending 9 days straight with you, it might be nice to have some peace and quiet for once," she teased.

"Uh huh," Alex chuckled. "I'll remember that when you're texting me at 8pm telling me how bored you are."

She laughed. "Talk to you later, Danvers. Good luck."

"Thanks, Maggie. Bye."

"Bye."

She disconnected the call. Time for coffee. And then she'd have to call Kelly.

***

By 8:15, she had called Kelly more than ten times. There was no answer. Direct to voicemail, each and every time. Her dozen text messages had also gone unanswered, left unread.

So she called Kara.

Fifteen minutes later, Kara had arrived, with a couple of cloth masks that had been given to her at work.

Alex picked one up and examined it. "Well, it'll do," she said. "Thanks." She put it on and adjusted it over her nose, pleased that there seemed to be something firm inside the top seam to keep its shape. She pressed it around her nose and pulled it down over her chin, so her face was well-covered. She nodded to Kara. "Let's go."

Together, they walked out onto Alex's balcony and Kara picked her up, bridal-style, and they flew over to Kelly's apartment.

"Hit your watch signal when you're ready," Kara said, as they arrived, hovering over Kelly's balcony, "and I'll be back here within thirty seconds."

"Thanks," she said, as Kara landed and lowered Alex to her feet before flying off.

Alex took a breath, adjusted her mask once more and walked up to the balcony door. The rest of the windows had the curtains drawn, but Kelly would be able to see her through the door. She knocked three times, loudly.

There was no response.

She knocked again and saw Kelly coming out of the back bedroom she used as her office, confused as to where the noise was coming from.

Alex knocked yet again to draw her attention and waved. Kelly's brow furrowed, and she stormed over to the door.

Wisely, Alex backed away so she was about ten feet from the door.

"You've got some goddamn nerve showing up here!"

Alex held up her hands. "Stay there," she said. "We should stay apart. I don't want to infect you if I have it."

She stopped, letting the door close behind her. Kelly might be angry, but she wasn't stupid.

Alex lowered her hands. "Look, Kelly, I'm sorry." She took a breath. "Can we talk for a minute?"

She folded her arms across her chest. "How'd you get here? Supergirl?"

She nodded.

"Well? What do you want?"

"Kelly, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

Alex nodded and took a breath, ready to say the words she'd been rehearsing since she'd first tried to call her that morning. "That's fair. I have a lot to apologize for. I should have asked you how you felt before inviting Maggie to stay with me. I should have been honest and present with you, more than I was, over the last week. And I absolutely shouldn't have mentioned anything about your fiancée. You're right, it's a whole different thing. And it was unfair of me to bring up and it hurt you."

Kelly stood there, impassive, her expression not having changed. "And?"

Alex blinked. "And what?" She went over the things she knew she'd been wrong about in her mind. Hadn't she hit every point?

She put her hands on her hips. "I still don't want her staying with you."

Alex chuckled, relief flooding her body. "No, no, don't worry. It's okay. Maggie's at the DEO."

Kelly's demeanour softened immediately. Her hands dropped from her hips, her face relaxed. "You asked her to leave?"

"No, she left this morning before I even woke up."

"Wait. She left… on her own?"

"Well, she roped Supergirl into helping, but yeah. I had no idea she was going to leave."

"So… you  _ didn't _ ask her to leave." It was a statement, not a question.

"No…"

Her girlfriend's walls went back up. She folded her arms across her chest again. "Then we don't have anything to say to one another, Alex."

"What? Why not?"

"You don't get, I don't know,  _ credit _ , for  _ her _ making the decision to leave."

"I don't get it," Alex said, flatly. "You didn't want us staying together. You just said that."

"What I  _ want _ is for you to have put me and my needs first. Above hers."

"But it's the same thing!" she said, spreading her arms in emphasis. "She's at the DEO for the rest of her quarantine!"

"Alex, I wanted you to show me -- to show  _ her _ \-- that I was who was important to you."

She paused. "And that's the only way I can show you that you're important to me? That I love you? What about the last few months? Doesn't that count for something?"

She scoffed. "When it counted, Alex, you put  _ her _ needs above mine."

Alex sighed, shoulders slumping. "It's a global pandemic, Kelly. I couldn't just let her rot at the DEO. I couldn't. I couldn't let  _ anyone  _ be stuck there."

"But it wasn't  _ anyone _ , Alex. It was the woman you were going to marry."

"Yes. The woman I  _ was  _ going to marry. Past tense. In case you've forgotten,  _ I _ left  _ her _ ."

"And that's part of the reason I didn't want her staying there!" she said, exasperatedly. "How do you know she's over you?"

Alex paused. "I mean, it's been three years. She's dated, had girlfriends." Something about what Kelly had said stuck with her.  _ Had _ Maggie moved on? There had been some moments over the last few days where she wondered… She shook her head. "Even if she hasn't, it's not like she hit on me or made me uncomfortable."

"No," she spat, "actually, you looked like quite the cozy couple last night."

Kelly's implication hit her. "Are you serious? There is  _ nothing  _ going on with me and Maggie! She just saw my headphones from her seat!"

"I'm not just talking about the stupid headphones, Alex. The joking banter, the familiarity? Calling her Mags? It was very coupley."

"Okay, now you're just going too far," she said, the annoyance clear in her voice. "We've been relearning how to interact with each other." She shrugged. "I guess we're falling into old habits."

"Well, it looks to me a lot like how an engaged couple would act."

She exhaled. She could feel herself on the verge of losing her temper again. "Kelly. You're blowing everything out of proportion."

"You're right," she said, and, for a moment, Alex felt a surge of hope in her chest.

"I am?"

"Yeah. Why should I care what you do anymore, Alex? We're done."

"Kelly."

"I mean it," she said, shaking her head. "Ultimately, you put your ex ahead of me. I see where I am in the pecking order. And I know my own worth, Alex. I know that I deserve better than this."

Alex's eyes filled with tears, feeling her slipping away. "Kelly, be reasonable!"

"I  _ am _ being reasonable. This is  _ exactly _ what I would tell any of my clients to do. Your partner lied to you? Put their ex ahead of you? Repeatedly? My  _ professional _ advice would be to move on because you deserve better than someone who's still in love with their ex."

Her jaw dropped at the accusation. "I… I'm… I'm not!" she protested, weakly.

She fixed Alex with a glare. "If you're not still in love with her, you've got a funny way of showing it. You've barely given me a second thought since you got back. Frankly, I won't stand for that kind of behaviour. I deserve better. Anyone would."

"I'm just trying to do what I think is right!" Alex shouted, tears of anger, of frustration streaming down her cheeks.

"Yeah, but Alex… never  _ once _ did you think about what was right for  _ us _ ."

That stopped her cold. She didn't have an argument for that. She stepped back, against the metal railing, placing her hands on it to brace herself. She bowed her head. "So that's it, then?" she asked, quietly, sniffling against her runny nose under her mask.

"Yeah," Kelly said, roughly, brushing away her own tears. "I think it's for the best."

Alex forced herself to swallow, to breathe, to take a moment to compose herself. She tapped her watch to signal Kara. "All right," she said, looking back up at her. "If, uh… if that's how you feel, then I'll respect your wishes." She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, Kelly," she said, hoarsely.

"I'm sorry too," she said.

Alex nodded.

Kelly turned and stepped back inside, leaving Alex to wait for Kara, alone with her thoughts, and her tears.

***

"Call work," Kara said, as they landed on her balcony. "You're taking the day off."

She pulled her mask off and wiped at her face the cuff of her sleeve. She shook her head. "Can't. Too much to do."

"Alex, please, just do it," her sister said. "I'm going to head to CatCo for a few minutes, then I'm going to get us…" She grabbed Alex's right wrist and twisted it and inclined her head to look at the time. "Well, it's a bit early for pizza and potstickers." She dropped Alex's hand. "Guess it'll have to be ice cream."

"I think I have ice cream, don't I?" Alex asked.

"The stuff I bought? Pretty sure it's vegan, from Maggie's list."

"Gross," Alex said, making a face. "Fine."

"Back soon." With that, she crouched down and jumped into the air. She was gone before Alex could say goodbye.

She exhaled and let herself into her apartment. She felt… hollow. It didn't  _ hurt _ the way it had hurt when she and Maggie had ended things. She was definitely numb, she decided. "Well, at least I don't have to drink to  _ get  _ numb," she muttered to herself. It wasn't even 9:30 in the morning, yet. As much as she would have liked to have whiskey or wine or beer, she recognized that it might have been a bit early.

Ice cream would do.

She dropped the mask on the counter, grabbed a couple of tissues and blew her nose, then headed to the couch.

Alex pulled out her phone and texted Maggie.

_ Well, nothing went as planned. _

A moment later, she got a reply.  _ Oh no. Are you okay? What happened? _

She sighed.  _ Tell you about it later, but…  _ She blew out a breath.  _ She broke up with me. It's over. _

_ She broke up with you? Who would do that? _

Despite everything, she laughed.  _ Cute, Maggie, very cute. _

_ It seemed appropriate. ;)  _ her response said.  _ But seriously, you okay? _

_ I'll be okay. Kara's bringing ice cream. _

_ Don't you have some? _

She narrowed her eyes.  _ You really think that *now* is the right time for me to eat your vegan ice cream? _

_ A girl's gotta try, Danvers, can't blame me. _

She smiled at her phone.  _ Anyway. Kara's coming back with real ice cream. I'll be okay. _

_ Okay. Just… I'm here if you need me, Alex. _

_ Thanks. _

_ Anytime. _

She called into work, let them know she needed the day, then set her phone down and waited for Kara.

Less than fifteen minutes later, the two of them were sitting on the couch, digging into pints of ice cream. Alex was having Rocky Road, of course, while Kara was having Cookie Dough.

"So you wanna tell me what happened?" Kara asked, around a mouthful of ice cream.

She sighed. "I mean, what's there to say? She broke up with me."

"Did she say why?"

"She said a lot of things."

"Such as?"

Alex brought a heaping spoonful of ice cream to her mouth and considered. "Well," she said, once she'd swallowed, "the thing I just didn't have an answer for was that, uh, I apparently didn't make the right decisions  _ for us _ ."

Kara frowned. "What does that even mean?" she asked, the words somewhat garbled as Kara's mouth was full of ice cream.

Alex shrugged. "I mean, I was arguing that I was just trying to do what was right, you know? Throughout this whole dumb quarantine thing?"

She nodded.

"But, uh, she… she didn't think I was doing the right thing for  _ us _ . Like, as a couple."

"Like what?"

"Well," Alex said, digging into her pint again, "the major issue she had was that I invited Maggie to stay here without consulting with her first."

Kara frowned. "I was there. Alex, there was no time."

"Right?" She took a bite and shook her head. "But she was really,  _ really _ upset about it."

Kara thought about it. "Well, if Mon-El was dating me but then was quarantined with Imra, I guess I might not take it all that well."

"Wait. Did you just compare me to Mon-El? I'm  _ Mon-El _ in this example?"

"It's the closest relatable example I have!"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Anyway. I guess I can understand that she was upset, but, like, it's my life. It's my apartment. It was my call."

"I mean, don't get me wrong, I totally get what you're saying about it being your life and your apartment. On the one hand, why should you ask?"

"Right?" Alex looked up at her, her eyebrows raised. "If it's my life, and it's my apartment, then it's my decision!"

"Well, Kelly didn't think so."

"No." She exhaled. "No, she didn't."

"So I think the answer there is that, on the other hand, maybe you should think about your partner when it might affect her," Kara said, quietly.

"I guess." Kara was making sense, but she didn't like it. She took another large bite of ice cream, enjoying the short brain-freeze from the cold treat.

"Alex, I know it sucks. You're a strong, self-sufficient, independent woman. I get that," she nodded. "But sometimes we have to think about how our actions affect others."

She blew out a breath. "I know that, Kara. I lived with Maggie for months. I know what it's like to need to compromise." She ran her fingers through her hair. "It just… it just didn't even  _ occur  _ to me." She sighed.

"I guess that's Kelly's point, maybe? Why  _ didn't  _ it occur to you?"

She shrugged and took another mouthful of ice cream.

"Were you angry with Kelly? Or were you guys having trouble?"

She shook her head. "No, we were fine before I went to Gotham."

"So why didn't you think about how having Maggie here might affect Kelly?"

Alex frowned. "Oh no, I  _ did _ think about that," she said. "When I made the offer to Maggie, three things went through my head. One," she extended her index finger, "I can't let Maggie go to the DEO and be stuck in a cell. Two," she extended her middle finger, "oh, god, this is gonna suck. Three," she extended her ring finger, "Kelly isn't going to like this."

"Wait. You  _ thought _ about it and you knew that Kelly wouldn't be happy about it?"

She nodded.

"And you did it anyway?"

Alex looked a little sheepish. "It just…" She blew out a breath. "Kara, it was just too important."

Kara pulled her spoon out of her mouth and swallowed her mouthful of ice cream. "So you just did it, knowing there would be consequences, but you did it anyway? Isn't that kind of impulsive?"

Alex laughed. "Funny you mention that," she said. "Maggie called me out on being rash and impulsive when we had our fight the other night."

"That's ridiculous, you're not… uh… I mean…" Kara faltered.

"It's okay," Alex said, "I'm impulsive. You can say it."

"I guess I hadn't really thought about it too much."

"Neither had I, not until Maggie accused me of it. That's kind of what started that whole fight in the first place."

"What did she say?"

She gave a half-smile. "That I go off half-cocked and act mostly on instinct."

Kara opened her mouth to object and then her brow furrowed.

"Crinkle," Alex said, poking at the crinkle between her eyebrows.

"You still need to figure out a way to botox that for me," her sister grumbled.

"One day," Alex smiled. She took another bite. "You see it now, though, don't you?"

"Yeah. Piloting my ship to rescue me. Coming to Maaldoria to save me." She took a bite of her ice cream. "Sleeping with a certain sassy assassin on Earth-1…"

"Oh God, can we forget about that, please?"

"Never," Kara grinned.

She scoffed. "Whatever. Anyway, you see my history? Pretty impulsive, when you think about it as a whole."

"Kinda, yeah," she admitted. "So you thought about the consequences of inviting Maggie here and said… what?"

She shrugged. "That sometimes, if it's important enough, the consequences don't matter."

"And keeping Maggie out of a DEO cell for two weeks was that important to you?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I probably would have invited just about anyone to stay with me to keep them out of a cell, to be honest. It's not like I was dying to spend two weeks with Maggie of all people. You know how freaked out I was about seeing her at the conference."

Kara nodded and then turned to look at her. "How about… Ms. Grant? Would you have invited her to stay here?"

Alex snorted. "As if Cat Grant would deem my studio apartment remotely worthy to spend five minutes in, much less two weeks. She'd take one look around and decide to rent out an entire penthouse somewhere."

"You have a point," Kara said, swallowing another bite of ice cream. "Mmm, what about Eliza?"

She blew out a breath. "That's a tough one, but yeah, probably." She made a face. "Imagine Mom and me in the same apartment for two weeks?"

"Definitely horrifying," Kara agreed. She thought for another moment. "Ooh, ooh, I got it. Maxwell Lord."

Alex narrowed her eyes. "No, okay,  _ that _ jackass can rot in a DEO cell for the rest of his days, as far as I'm concerned."

Kara nodded. "Okay, so most people. Including Maggie. And does Kelly understand that?"

She exhaled. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Do you think you could explain it to her?"

She shook her head. "I tried. I told her I was just trying to do the right thing, and she said that I hadn't even once done the right thing  _ for us _ ." She took another bite of ice cream. "Couldn't argue.  _ Us _ just didn't even make it into the equation, you know?"

"Ah." Kara chewed thoughtfully. She frowned again "So, wait… why now?"

"Hm?"

"Why did she break up with you  _ now _ and not when you first brought Maggie home?"

Alex blew out a breath. She put her pint of ice cream down and picked up her phone. She navigated to Maggie's Facegram page and handed the phone to Kara.

"Alex, this is such a great photo!" she exclaimed. "Look at that smile on your face! God, I haven't seen you this happy in a long time. And Maggie looks like she's having fun, too. This was from the hike?"

She nodded as she picked up her ice cream again. "Yep."

"Well, it's a beautiful photo." She looked up at Alex. "What does this have to do with Kelly?"

"I took the photo, sent it to Maggie, and she posted it on Facegram."

"And? It's not like Kelly follows Maggie, does she? Or is she weirdly creepy?"

She sighed. "I liked the photo. Kelly can see my activity. So she saw it."

Kara's jaw dropped. "Ohhhh." She looked at the photo and then back up at her. "Oh, Alex."

"Yeah." She took another bite of ice cream.

"So she thought you, uh, were back together or what?"

She chuckled weakly. "She actually accused me of stringing her along while I tried to work things out with Maggie."

"No!"

"Yeah." She sighed. "It didn't help that I lied to her about what I was doing while we were on the hike."

"Alex!"

"I know, I know. But she wouldn't have understood!" Alex argued.

"So instead of her misunderstanding about the hike when you told her the truth, she misunderstood about the hike after you  _ lied _ to her?"

She groaned and just took another bite of ice cream.

"Alex, none of this looks good from an outside perspective."

"I know, Kara, I know," she grumbled. "I just…" She blew out a breath. "I needed to be outside, to be active. And I couldn't just leave Maggie here, alone, while I was gone. Like what would I say? Sorry Mags, going on a hike, you can't come! Bye!" She  _ tsk _ ed. "It's all just so stupid," she muttered. "But, uh, I guess that it kind of shows that Kelly and I weren't really well-suited to each other."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, like, if I thought she would, or  _ could _ , understand about my needing to be active, I might not have lied about the hike. I mean, I  _ probably _ would have lied about Maggie coming along, but maybe not about the hike."

"And she'd have found out anyway from the Facegram post."

"You've got a point," she sighed, as she scraped up the last melty bits of ice cream from the bottom of the container. "Things just got so messed up, Kara," she said, before taking the last bite of her ice cream.

"So it's over?"

She nodded. "I don't think there's anything anyone could say to Kelly that would convince her to give me another chance." She put the empty container on the coffee table. "And, you know, I don't know that I'd want another chance, honestly."

"Oh?"

"She kind of thinks I'm still in love with Maggie."

"Talk about burying the lede, Alex! What?"

"She thinks that's why I put Maggie's needs ahead of hers," she said, mildly.

"Is it why?"

She shook her head. "No."

"So, you're not still in love with Maggie?"

She took a breath. "I… you know, that's a hard question to answer."

Kara finished her pint and put it down. "Try."

Alex shrugged. "There have been times over the last week where, yes, I would have absolutely said I was still in love with Maggie. But, you know, what if… what if it's just nostalgia? Memories?"

"What if it's not?"

"If it's not, then what could I even do?" She shook her head. "Maggie's had three years to get over me. We still don't agree on kids. So it doesn't even matter if I have any feelings for her." She exhaled. "You know, Kelly once told me that, uh, that wounds heal into scars that, you know, eventually fade in time." She gave Kara a sad smile. "I think that I've tried to ignore this gaping wound in my heart for the last couple of years. It  _ hasn't _ healed. I… I think maybe I just… shut down, you know? So that it wouldn't hurt so much?"

She nodded. "What, um… what does that mean for Kelly? Were you, like, not open with her?"

Alex took a breath. "I think that, you know, she was nice. She was cute. She was… she was there, you know? There wasn't any blind date bullshit, no dating apps… She was a friend who became something more." She exhaled. "But I don't, uh, I mean… I thought that because Maggie was my first love, no other relationship would ever feel just the same. So I thought that what I felt for Kelly was, you know, enough? I guess? Because nothing would ever be quite the same as Maggie."

"So you maybe weren't so open with her?"

She shook her head. "I… just didn't  _ feel  _ so much with her, you know? And… and I really thought it was just because… because she wasn't Maggie. That different relationships feel different."

"But?"

"But, uh, I think… I think that being around Maggie has, um… maybe started to open me back up." She blew out a breath. "Ugh, and it all kind of sucks."

"Try to focus on just one thing at a time," Kara said, gently.

"It's all connected," she complained. "Kelly, Maggie, my feelings, their feelings, all of it just seems like everything is just tied up in a massive knot. The last time I felt so… confused, I guess, was when I was coming out."

"That bad?"

She nodded. "I think the best thing for me right now is to just focus on work."

Kara narrowed her eyes at her. "Right, because throwing yourself into work instead of  _ dealing  _ with your various feelings is such a healthy alternative."

She rolled her eyes. "Listen, just keep me stocked with good ice cream and I'll be fine," she joked.

"I brought a few pints, so you should be good for a couple of days, at least."

Alex nodded. "Thanks."

"You feeling okay? Ish?"

"I'm not going to go for the whiskey as soon as you leave," she said, "don't worry."

Kara grinned. "Okay. I'm going to go back to work for a few hours and then I'll come back with dinner. Does that sound all right?"

She nodded. "I'm just gonna keep going through these new DEO protocols. It'll keep me busy. And out of trouble."

"Okay." Kara leaned over and kissed Alex on the cheek. "I'll be back later. Call or text if you need me. For any reason."

"Thanks, Kara."

With that, Kara stood and whipped off her glasses, transforming into Supergirl in front of Alex. "See you later. Love you."

"Love you, too."

Kara let herself out onto the balcony and Alex heard her zipping away.

She exhaled. Gathering the empty pints of ice cream, she stood and brought them to the kitchen, tossing the containers and putting the spoons in the sink. She went to her laptop and opened up the protocols she'd been reviewing. There had been something about cleaning cloth face coverings.

The proposed instructions suggested mixing a quart of water with four teaspoons of household bleach and soaking the mask in the solution for five minutes. Afterwards, she should let it air dry, preferably on a flat surface in direct sunlight.

She nodded. There were things to do. Things that would keep her mind off of Kelly, off of Maggie, off of everything.

For now.


	12. Day 10 (cntd)

The cell wasn't uncomfortable, much to Maggie's surprise. It was much larger than she'd been expecting, and brighter, too. Four individual cells took up the entirety of the large chamber. Each cell was in a corner of the room and so two of the walls for each cell were the actual room walls and the other two walls were glass. Maggie was the only occupant in any of the cells, and the regular surveillance cameras had been switched off. In her own cell, there was a table, a chair and a bed which actually had a real mattress. The wifi was fast with a strong signal. She also had a water dispenser, some glasses and some packaged snack foods as well as some fresh fruit. Inside the cell were also controls that would open her door and bring up barriers to allow her to walk safely to a small, but functional, bathroom. It even had a shower. Even better, since she was the only one in the DEO's isolation cells, she could use it whenever she wanted.

What had really surprised her was the  _ menu _ she'd been offered at lunch. She'd half-expected field rations or protein bars and briefly wondered if Alex had had anything to do with it.

She'd selected a Greek salad with grilled chicken and it was surprisingly tasty. It had been delivered by an agent she didn't recognize, though that didn't surprise her after three years. She hardly expected Vasquez to be delivering her food. The agent, a woman dressed in a full biohazard suit, had opened the slot at waist-height in the door and had deposited the tray on a small shelf attached to the inside of the door.

As she ate, Maggie surfed the internet mindlessly on her laptop, skipping from site to site, from silly puppy videos to news articles about the pandemic. She couldn't keep her thoughts coherent. All that kept racing through her mind was that  _ Alex Danvers was single _ .

It was funny, she mused, as she ate her salad. She'd spent three years thinking about Alex, off and on. More on than off, if she was being honest, and she'd deliberately tried to ignore the fact that she had most likely moved on with another woman. Or multiple other women, over the years. She hadn't known for sure until this past week, and, even though she'd been expecting it, it had hurt to discover. And so she just assumed that's how it would be. That she would have to get over Alex Danvers once and for all, because she was in a relationship.

And now, all of a sudden, she wasn't in a relationship any longer.

It left Maggie in a difficult position. On the one hand, she knew she wasn't over Alex. Maybe she'd never  _ been  _ over Alex.

On the other hand, she'd been down that road before. She'd pleaded with Alex to pick her, to choose her, and she  _ hadn't _ .

She swallowed, hard, forcing the bite of her salad to go down and chased it with water.

So as much as she might like to throw herself at Alex's feet and plead with her to take her back, she couldn't. She wouldn't.

Instead, she'd be her friend. They'd play pool, eat pizza, laugh at each other's jokes.

And, if Maggie was still wildly in love with Alex, did it really matter if neither one of them felt they could change their minds on the idea of children?

She sighed and mopped up the last of the dressing with a piece of bread and chewed thoughtfully, hoping Alex was doing okay. She hadn't heard from her since after she'd told her that Kelly had ended it.

Maggie stared at her phone, willing it to buzz and light up with a message from Alex, but it remained dark. Should she text her?

She'd thought she was over this nonsense. Should she text or shouldn't she? Should she go to the DEO or shouldn't she? She had spent a truly ridiculous amount of time wondering if she should sign her note to Alex that morning with "love" or "xo" or neither? Or even both, which is what she'd finally ended on. It was absolutely maddening to be stuck feeling like a teenager with a crush again. Especially with Alex. They'd gotten past this point. Having to navigate through it, again, was stupid.

She pushed her plate aside and picked up her phone, tapping through to her messages. Taking a breath, she began to type.

_ Hey, just wanted to see how you're doing. Uh, also, if you had anything to do with my choice of lunch items, because if you did, thank you. _

She reread it. She'd learned to do that after texting Alex a couple of months after things had ended and being absolutely mortified to find she'd used the wrong "your". Not seeing any errors, she hit send, nodding in satisfaction. If they were going to be friends, then they were going to act like it, and she wasn't going to be scared to text Alex if she felt like it.

Her brain convinced of that, she now had to convince her body that it could stand down from DEFCON 2 levels of nervousness. She could breathe and do yoga to calm herself, but she knew the discomfort in the pit of her stomach wouldn't fully disappear until Alex texted her back.

And she hated how tied to Alex's actions her emotions already were after just nine days in quarantine with her.

She had just put the tray on the shelf at the door to be picked up and was eyeing one of the apples in the bowl on the table when her phone buzzed.

She was absolutely certain her brain released a hit of dopamine when she checked her phone and saw Alex had written back.

Maybe she should make another appointment with Luisa, to help her nip this in the bud.

She opened the text.

_ Blah. Trying to go through these protocols to keep my mind off things. Tell me about lunch. I literally just had a pint of ice cream (REAL ice cream, not the sludge you like to eat) less than two hours ago, so that's like, I guess, brunch? Whatever, definitely not hungry for lunch yet. _

Maggie smiled.

_ Well, I guess the protocols are good for something, right? Lunch was good, I had like, a menu. And choices. Pasta, Greek salad with grilled chicken or a grilled chicken breast with steamed vegetables as a side. _

She could see Alex typing.

_ Oh, yeah, we upgraded the commissary a couple of years ago. Actual chefs on the premises, 24/7. You're probably getting the same choices any agent would get. _

_ Nice. I'm impressed. And yet somehow still cranky I'm not getting special treatment around here. ;) _

_ You don't need to be there, you know. _

Her heart thudded and she swallowed as she wrote out the question for Alex.

_ What do you mean? _

It took an excruciatingly long time for Alex to respond, despite the fact Maggie kept seeing her typing.

_ I mean, like, you can come back. If you want. Kelly's not an issue. So you don't need to be in a cell. You can come back. You know, if you want. _

She was beaming, dimples out and everything.

_Aw, what's the matter, Danvers, you miss me already?_ _;)_

Maggie took a breath after she sent it, waiting for the response. After an interminable delay, clocking in at more than four minutes, according to the timestamps, Alex finally wrote back.

_ I'm going to miss your cooking. Obviously. _

She laughed.

_ You can reheat stuff. _

The next message came back much more quickly.

_ It's not the same. And what about the puzzle? You're gonna leave me here to finish this all on my own? Rude. _

Maggie smiled down at her phone.

_ I'm sure you can manage without me, Doctor Doctor Danvers. _

She  _ wanted  _ to go back to the apartment, but Alex needed space, even if she didn't realize it. She missed Alex, but she wasn't sure she was ready to have a conversation hashing out her relationship with Kelly. That wasn't something she particularly wanted to do. She'd be there for Alex if that's what she wanted to do by text or by phone, but in person, she wouldn't have the opportunity to hide her reactions as well. No, it was better that she stay at the DEO and let Alex mostly talk it out with Kara, in person. Then, once she was home again, she could see Alex occasionally. As a friend. She nodded. It was a good plan.

_ I suppose I can. But I don't want to. :( _

Maggie inhaled sharply and stared, dumbly, at her phone, wondering what to say when another message came in.

_ But if I must, I must. You holding up okay? _

At least she could answer that.

_ Yeah, it's not as bad as I thought it would be, even if it's not as nice as the apartment. Still, it's just another few days. I'll be fine. _

_ Let me know if you want to come back, okay? Seriously. It's fine. _

She smiled.

_ I'll let you know. Thank you. _

Maggie paused and decided to ask how she was doing. It's what a friend would do, right?

_ How are you feeling? _

The response came back much more quickly than she'd have thought.

_ Now I just feel like I got kicked in the gut instead of the face. _

She frowned. It sounded familiar. Where had she heard that be--. She laughed as the memory came up. Alex was quoting her after she'd been dumped. Smiling, she tried to remember the rest of the conversation.

_ After quarantine, wanna go out and celebrate singledom? Maybe at that food channel guy's tapas place? _

The answer was slow in coming.

_ You and me? Maggie Sawyer, are you angling for something? ;) _

Her eyes went wide as her skin flushed and she quickly typed out a message.

_ No! _

She continued typing.

_ I just… pool. You know? Sorry, I didn't… Alex, I'm not…  _

_ I'm just teasing, Mags. _

She exhaled.

_ Bitch. _

Alex just sent a smiling emoji in return.

Maggie shook her head and navigated to her email app. She definitely needed to schedule an appointment with Luisa.

_ Hi Luisa, _

_ So, the update is I'm at the secure government facility and Alex's girlfriend broke up with her so she's now single… any chance of a session soon? _

_ Maggie _

She navigated back to her text app and sent back an emoji with its tongue sticking out.

***

"Thanks for seeing me on such short notice," Maggie said. Luisa had quickly offered a couple of slots that same afternoon.

"Of course," she said. "Not a problem. So her girlfriend broke up with her?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know why?"

Maggie gave a sheepish smile and a half-shrug. "Sort of?"

"Oh?"

"I mean, I think… I'm pretty sure it has to do with me."

"How so?"

Maggie sighed. "You know the photo I showed you?"

"Oh, of you two hiking? That was such a lovely picture."

"Yeah, yeah it kinda was." She cleared her throat. "But, uh… Alex's girlfriend saw it and Alex had, well, lied to her about where she was going to be."

"Why did she lie?"

Maggie paused, realizing she was caught in a difficult situation. The real reason Alex had lied was because of the fact that Kara had flown them out. She looked at her phone, seeing Luisa look at her, questioningly. "It, uh, it's complicated, but that part, at least, had nothing to do with me. She just told Kelly she would be doing work stuff while we were out hiking."

"Okay."

"But she saw it. And realized Alex had lied. And they had a huge fight."

"And that's when her girlfriend dumped her?"

"Well, uh, not exactly," Maggie said. "I'm pretty sure that happened this morning."

"So what happened between last night and this morning?"

"Um, well, Alex kind of spent time sobbing in my arms after their fight on the phone."

"Oh, Maggie," Luisa said. "Are you okay after that?"

"Well, that's kind of why I'm here," she said, gesturing, "at the government facility." She sighed. "I held her while she cried and I tucked her into bed and… and I knew right then that I had to leave, that I had to come here."

"So what happened?"

"I, uh, made use of some resources to get a hold of Supergirl and had her bring me here, without telling Alex. She, uh, she didn't know I was leaving, just woke up and I was gone."

She nodded. "So why do you think you had to leave without even talking to Alex about it?"

"She wouldn't have let me go."

"And why is that?"

"I guess it's probably for the same reason she invited me to stay with her in the first place."

"Which is what?"

"She didn't want me in a cell when I didn't have to be?" She shrugged. "Although, as far as cells go, it's pretty great. I think the wifi here is faster than what I've got at home," she chuckled.

"So why did you leave?" Luisa asked, bringing her back from her tangent.

Maggie sighed, heavily. "She needed time and space to work things out with her girlfriend, I thought. And I was going to give her that."

"Maggie, you know I think you're a wonderful human being, right?"

She frowned at the non sequitur. "Uh, I guess, yeah?"

"Well, I do. And so, yes, I think you would definitely do that for someone."

"Okay."

"But I don't think that's the  _ only  _ reason you did that."

She shook her head. "It wasn't," she said, quietly.

"So why?"

She rolled her eyes at herself. "I couldn't do it, Luisa. I couldn't be there for her as she either got back together with her girlfriend or…"

"Or?"

"Or didn't get back together with her and needed to talk about it," she breathed.

"Mmm," Luisa nodded in understanding. "Both situations would be hard for you."

She nodded.

"So you left."

She nodded again.

"Does Alex know all the reasons why you left?"

She gave a weak laugh. "No. She thinks I just left to give her space."

"Did she ever ask you to leave?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I've offered several times and she never took me up on it."

"So what was her reaction to waking up and your being gone?"

She exhaled. "She called me. Told me I didn't have to do that. And I said she needs space to work out things with Kelly and she admitted maybe I was right."

"But then things  _ didn't  _ work out with her girlfriend."

Maggie shook her head. "I don't really know exactly what happened. She didn't share and I didn't ask. I didn't want all the details. Alex texted me later to tell me it's over, that Kelly ended it."

"I see. And how do you feel about that?"

She shrugged. "I mean… I can't be with Alex. Even if she's single. So, while part of me is happy she's single, I'm not happy she's upset, and I know this doesn't mean she and I can just get back together."

"Right. So you're… just going to be friends."

Maggie nodded.

"You haven't changed your mind? You still want a friendship with her?"

"What, in the three days since we last talked?" she laughed. "No, I haven't changed my mind."

"Yet, you're at the government facility instead of being with her. After she told you, multiple times, you didn't need to go there."

Maggie opened her mouth and shut it. "I know."

"So why are you there, Maggie?"

"I don't know," she muttered. "Maybe I'm just a shitty friend, being selfish."

Luisa smiled at her. "It must hurt, a lot, to see someone you care for so very much in pain."

She nodded.

"And in pain because of someone else."

She nodded again, her lips tight.

"When all you want is to take her in your arms and make it okay."

She exhaled. "Yeah. But I don't trust myself. And I don't want to be hurt." She took a breath. "Honestly, it's best that I'm here, now. I'll finish out my quarantine. She'll talk to her sister about her relationship. And then next week we can go out, play pool or whatever, depending on city by-laws and stuff to do with the pandemic."

"Because it'll be easier to just focus on the surface of your friendship."

She shot Luisa a look.

"It seems to me that you've been able to tackle a lot about your past relationship in the last few days, but I don't think you've talked too much about your future relationship. And maybe you should."

"Now?!"

"No," she smiled. "But eventually."

"Why?" Maggie asked. "What would the point be? Uh, I'm still over the moon for you, Alex, but I still don't want kids? Is that what I should say?"

"To figure out who you are to one another. Do you think, Maggie, that you could ever  _ just  _ be friends?"

"I think I can fake that pretty well, so yeah."

"Do you want your friendship to be based on a falsehood?"

That stopped her. "No," she muttered, "but I'd rather play the part of a good friend than lose her, even in that capacity."

"Do you think you would lose her if you told her you still have feelings for her?"

She flashed back to the moment on the trail when she thought Alex was going to kiss her. She thought back to the night before, holding Alex in her arms as she cried. She thought back to the other morning, as Alex held her.

She swallowed. "Maybe not," she acknowledged. "There… there have been a lot of moments in the last few days where I swear she feels something too."

"So maybe you can build your friendship and see where it goes from there?"

"That's the problem, Luisa. We know it can't go anywhere."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "You knew it couldn't go anywhere three years ago. A lot of things can happen in three years."

"We just talked about this last week," she disagreed. "Things haven't changed for either of us."

"And you don't think that Alex will be revisiting a lot of assumptions about her life after her girlfriend broke up with her?"

She blinked. "I guess maybe."

"And you don't think that you're going to revisit some of your assumptions about your life now that Alex is back in it?"

"Don't get my hopes up, Luisa. I can't lose her again. I can't get hurt like that again. You, of all people, know how wrecked I was when I first came to see you."

Her therapist raised her hands in surrender. "I'm just saying, Maggie, keep an open mind."

She narrowed her eyes. "On Saturday, you were congratulating me on my restraint, for not kissing her on the trail."

"On Saturday, she had a girlfriend and you were staying in the same apartment." She smiled, kindly. "Things change, Maggie. Things can turn on a dime."

"Or they can stay the same for years."

"Yes. You're right. They might stay the same." She shrugged. "I'm just saying, don't be so hard on yourself and don't turn a blind eye to the possibilities that may now be open to you."

Something in Maggie's chest glowed at that. The thought that maybe she and Alex could work through things was… dangerous.  _ Hope  _ was dangerous. She had to keep her wits about her. "Distance will be good for us," she said. "I, uh… it'll give us time to think. And to build things slowly."

"So you're going to stay at the facility?"

"I think so. Even though Alex has already invited me back."

"Why did she invite you back?"

"I don't know," she replied, honestly. "She said Kelly wasn't an issue anymore, obviously. So I didn't need to be here."

"And, even though she's invited you back, you're staying there?"

"I think it's wise."

"You're so cautious, Maggie. You've been cautious for the last three years."

"And?"

"And… not that I want Alex to smash your heart again… I haven't seen you even  _ consider  _ opening up to anyone at all. Until now."

She sighed.

"So if you do open up to her, and I'm not saying you have to, but if you do… remember that it doesn't  _ just  _ open yourself up to being hurt again. It can open you up to those moments of happiness again. Like that moment the morning after you first spent the night with her. The moment she walked into that ballroom for Valentine's Day, wearing that dress. That time after you and Supergirl rescued her and she told you that she loved you for the very first time."

She inhaled sharply.

"That's what opening yourself up can lead to, Maggie. Don't forget that. That's all," she said, gently.

"I won't forget," she promised. "But if I get hurt again, you're going to start giving me a 10% frequent client discount."

Luisa laughed. "Deal."

***

By 9:30, Maggie had already showered and changed for bed and was curled up on her bed with her laptop, watching some dumb show on Netflix, when her phone buzzed.

_ Hey. _

It was Alex.

_ Hey, _ she typed back,  _ how are you doing? How was Kara? _

_ I'm okay, I guess. Tired. It was good to have dinner with Kara and watch some TV and talk some things out. _

She nodded.  _ Good, I'm glad. You should get some rest. _

_ Yeah, I'm already in bed. _

She paused at the thought and fiercely shoved her mental image down.  _ Good. Did you get through the protocols? _

_ Most of them, actually. _

_ Hey, look at you, being productive. Good job, Danvers. _

_ Well, it was that or mope around and focus on my heart. _

Maggie nodded.  _ Yeah, I, um… I can relate. _

There wasn't a response to that.

_ Sorry, Alex, _ she typed,  _ I didn't mean anything by it. Just that it's hard to focus on anything after a breakup. _

There was a long pause but Maggie had seen Alex start to type something. Finally, minutes later, her response arrived.

_ I'm sorry for hurting you. You know, back then. _

Something in her chest ached.  _ Wasn't your fault, _ she answered,  _ it's just the circumstances. _

_ I'm still sorry _ , Alex's reply came back quickly.

_ Me too, _ she answered.

There was another long pause.

_ Well, I guess it's bedtime for me. It's been a long day. You comfortable over there? _

_ Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Just watching some Netflix and will probably be getting to sleep soon. _

_ Okay. You let me know if there's anything I can do to make you more comfortable there. Even though you could totally come back here. That puzzle isn't going to solve itself. _

She smiled.  _ I'm okay for now, thanks. Get some sleep, all right? _

_ All right. G'night Mags. _

_ Sweet dreams, Alex _ she typed, then stopped and erased the  _ Alex  _ and replaced it with the slightly less-serious  _ Danvers _ .

She sighed and put her phone down. She could feel the hope sliding into the cracks in her armour and desperately hoped that her staying at the DEO would help her to fend off any more of it.

She just needed a little distance and then she could be friends with Alex.

Right?

The question remained in her mind all night, even as she slept.


	13. Day 11

She woke up around 7:30, her phone buzzing irritatingly. Maggie fumbled for her phone and hit the snooze. Yawning, she blinked, disoriented.

_ Oh. The DEO. _

She exhaled. It wasn't a dream. She'd left Alex's the day before, for a variety of reasons.

_ And Alex is still single. _

She shook her head. "C'mon, Sawyer," she muttered to herself, as she sat up and made herself get out of bed. It was comfortable, more than the sofa bed at Alex's, at any rate, and she'd slept well. She stretched and stood, pressing the buttons that would allow her to move to the bathroom.

The transparent walls of the makeshift corridor slid into place and her door swung open. She grabbed her travel bag and some clothes, before walking the short distance to the bathroom where she used the facilities, washed her face, brushed her teeth and got dressed.

A few minutes later, she was back in her room -- despite it being a cell, it felt more like a room -- and hit the buttons to close things up again.

The small screen attached to the desk, from which she'd ordered lunch and dinner the previous day, was blank, so she lightly tapped it.

The screen sprang to life and there were some options for breakfast.

Two eggs, any style, and a choice of sides was the first choice. French toast with a fruit cup was the second. And, she smiled, black coffee and a double-toasted sesame seed bagel was the third choice.

She pulled out her phone and took a picture of the menu and sent it to Alex. She tapped on the third option and the screen acknowledged her input, saying it would be about fifteen minutes.

Alex wrote back.

_ Is there something specific I should be looking at? _

Maggie frowned.  _ Do you mean I don't have you to thank for this? _

_ For what? _

_ For what? For the option to have coffee and a dry, double-toasted sesame seed bagel! _

There was a pause.

_ Oh *that*. Yeah, I'm kind of a big deal over there, so I figured that if you're going to insist on staying there like a dummy, that should be an option for you. ;) _

She laughed.  _ Thanks, Danvers. That's nice of you. Dummy comment excepted. _

_ Well, you kind of are a dummy. You still don't need to be there. _

She exhaled, somehow still surprised at how much she wanted to hear such a thing from Alex, even if she thought staying at the DEO was a better idea. She took a moment and finally sent what she was thinking.

_ You need some space. _

She saw Alex read the message immediately and then start typing. And stop typing. And start typing again. Eventually, her message came through.

_ Maybe. But you don't need to be there. I could work through my stuff while you're here. It's not like I'm being loud while thinking about where my relationship went wrong. _

Maggie breathed. It was so tempting. She could go back to the apartment and spend time with her… and likely end up holding her. Again. She shook her head. That was dangerous, both for her and for Alex. Ultimately, she was certain she'd just end up getting hurt again.

_ I think it's better if I'm here for a bit. Besides, _ she added,  _ I'm pretty sure Kara's tired of flying me places. ;) _

_ Kara would do it if I asked her. I mean, I'd have to also bribe her, but she'd do it. _

She chuckled.  _ Thanks anyway, Danvers. It'll do you some good to be alone with your thoughts for a bit, _ she wrote, thinking about how Luisa had pointed out that Alex would likely spend some time reassessing her life, her priorities… She wasn't going to hold her breath for an outcome where Alex suddenly, miraculously, did not want to have kids, but she hoped that some time alone would benefit Alex. She could work through her feelings about her relationship with Kelly and stuff better alone than with Maggie there.

_ I guess. You're welcome back, though. Okay? _

_ Okay, _ she replied, _ thank you. And thanks for breakfast. _

_ :) _

She nodded to herself. It was better this way.

Wasn't it?

***

The day passed slowly. Maggie's main focus over the last week or so had been on a case involving a Phorian who was accused of using her telekinesis to murder a woman. The prime issue was that the Phorian was caught on a traffic camera leaving the scene, but there was only one eye witness. They could place the Phorian within the area at about the right time, but otherwise it was the Phorian's word against the witness' word.

Of course, the Phorian had been arrested. Unfortunately, she'd run into an anti-alien judge who set an exorbitant amount for bail, so she was stuck in jail until the trial, even though there wasn't much in the way of hard evidence. Maggie had offered her opinions to her lieutenant as well as her captain and neither conversation had gone well. So she'd been spending her time looking for clues, evidence, trying to get some of her colleagues to conduct additional interviews and do more canvassing. So far, nothing had come up and she was at a dead end.

The only thing she had to go on was that the eye-witness had previously dated the Phorian, and had been romantically involved with the victim at the time of the murder. Something about it seemed very off to Maggie. It would have been easy for the eye-witness to come up with a story involving his ex. He could have easily blamed the Phorian for the victim's murder -- you don't need to find fingerprints on a knife that was supposedly thrown into the victim's back using telekinetic abilities.

She was going through the reports again when her phone buzzed. She glanced at it. It was Alex. Of course it was Alex. And her heart leapt. She rolled her eyes at herself as she accessed the message on her phone.

_ Hey. _

_ Hi. _

_ How's your day going? _

_ Okay, _ Maggie replied,  _ kind of slow. The Phorian case still doesn't smell right to me. _ She'd been bouncing ideas off of Alex all week and, though it wasn't the majority of their interactions, it had been nice to do so again. They'd always worked well together, after all.

_ Anything I can help with? _

She sighed.  _ Not really, not unless you can find another eye-witness. I think the guy killed his girlfriend and just implicated his ex, the Phorian, because why not? _

_ Do you have any evidence or is this entirely conjecture? _

She laughed.  _ It's more than conjecture, Danvers. It's my intuition. _

_ Your intuition, good as it is, is not admissible in a court of law. _

She rolled her eyes.  _ Why you gotta point that out to me? _

_ Someone's got to keep you on your toes. Oh, and speaking of which, you probably want to turn around in about five seconds. _

Maggie frowned, turning around cautiously. Was Alex  _ there _ ? Her heart skipped a beat at the thought. A moment later, the main quarantine chamber's doors opened and an agent, in a full bio-hazard suit, walked towards her with a covered tray. He placed it on the shelf attached to the door.

"What's this?"

"Compliments of the Director," he said, with a smile that was barely visible through the biohazard suit.

"Thanks," she said, bringing the tray back to her desk. She uncovered it to find a rather large piece of tiramisù and a fresh coffee.

Smiling, she picked up her phone and took a picture and sent it to Alex.

_ Thanks, _ she texted.  _ You didn't need to do that. _

_ It's 3:17pm. If I hadn't, you would have been incredibly cranky about twenty minutes from now, even if you weren't bashing your head against this case. _

She tried to argue, starting and stopping her text several times.  _ Listen, you, I have tiramisù to eat, so I don't need to take your crap,  _ she teased.

_ Enjoy, Maggie. _

She smiled.  _ Thanks, Alex. _

***

A couple of hours later, Maggie's phone rang. It was Alex.

She raised an eyebrow and answered.

"Danvers?"

"Sawyer," she teased.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to tell you to check your email."

She frowned. "What?"

"Go on."

She put the phone down and put it on speaker while she navigated to her email inbox. There was a new email there from Alex's DEO address. "What's this?"

"A surprise," Alex's voice came from the small speaker.

She clicked it open and there was a link, along with a username, msawyer, and a password, gertrude8789. She snorted. "Nice password."

"Well, you're gonna remember it."

"I mean, I guess so," she said, clicking the link. It was to an internal DEO site. When prompted, she entered the credentials. She was rewarded with access to various cameras located in the area in which the murder had occurred. "Alex… what is this?"

"You needed a lead, here you go. The archived footage goes back to the start of the month, so you should be able to find something."

She frowned. "Alex, what are these cameras?"

"They're federally-mandated hidden cameras," she admitted.

"Are you saying the DEO is spying on the entire populace of National City?" She was aghast.

"I would never say such a thing."

"Alex…" she said in a warning tone.

"I promise, it's not to spy on people. The footage gets wiped every month unless there's an alien-related situation."

"Uh, huh." She was unconvinced.

"Maggie. Just use the resource, okay?"

"Is it even admissible in court?" she asked.

"Maybe. Depends on if you find something. If you find a smoking gun, sure. Otherwise, just use it to source more leads, see if your Phorian was on foot in the area."

She hesitated. "I don't feel great about this."

"You prefer the Phorian to rot in jail because she can't afford bail?"

Maggie sighed. "I guess you have a point."

"Just trying to help," she said. Something about her tone caused Maggie to frown. She suddenly got it, as it clicked into place in her mind. This was Alex being helpful, sure, but probably also trying to keep her mind off Kelly.

"You doing okay over there, Danvers?" She both did and didn't want to ask, but she couldn't help herself.

There was a pause and Alex exhaled. "I… yeah… I'm… I'll be fine."

She felt her heart twist. "Alex."

Maggie heard Alex's swallow.

"I keep thinking things."

She froze. That could mean anything. It could be about Kelly. It could be about work. Or Kara. But Maggie knew that's not what Alex was talking about.

"What things?" she asked, quietly.

"Just… uh…" She cleared her throat. "Life things."

"You okay?" she asked again.

"It's, um… you know… kind of hard. Like… taking stock. Thinking. About things. Now."

She hardly dared to breathe. "Yeah," she said, her voice hoarse, barely above a whisper.

"So, um, yeah, use the, uh, the footage. Or not, whatever. I, uh… I just wanted to help out. Okay?"

She nodded. "Thank you," she said, at a normal volume. "Talk later?"

"Yeah," Alex said, softly. "Later."

The call ended and Maggie exhaled.

There would be time to think about her feelings for Alex later. For now, there was work to do.

***

Maggie had just taken her shower and dried her hair in the small, but functional, bathroom. She'd spent way too much time pouring through video footage from the variety of cameras that Alex had permitted her to access. She'd felt bad doing so, feeling as though she were violating the civil rights of every person she saw in the video recordings. Still, maybe she could get the charges dismissed and get the Phorian freed.

In her pajamas, Maggie padded back to her cell and hit the button to shut the door and lower the transparent walls of the makeshift hallway.

She put her clothing away in her suitcase and checked her phone. Alex had texted a few minutes earlier.

_ What're you up to? _

She started typing.

_ Showered, was thinking of trying to relax for a bit before getting an early night. You? _

Alex started responding immediately.

_ Oh, are you tired? _

_ Kinda, _ she replied.

_ Oh. Okay, have a good night. _

Maggie frowned.  _ Danvers, what is it? _

_ Nothing, it's fine. _

_ Alex. _

She watched Alex type and stop, type and stop, type and then finally the message came through.

_ I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to watch The Good Place with me. Like on the phone. But it's fine if you don't. You should sleep. _

Maggie smiled. She navigated to her contact list and tapped Alex's number, still listed in her favourites. She brought the phone to her ear.

"Maggie?"

"Sounds like fun," she said. "What episode are we on?"

There was a short pause and then she heard Alex's exhale. "Thanks," she said. "Uh, let me see. I think we're on… episode ten of season 3. It's called Janet(s)."

Maggie grinned. "Oh, this is a great one. Hang on, let me get my headphones and the laptop." She plugged in her headphones and hefted the laptop with her other hand, bringing it to the bed and turning out the lamp at the desk.

"You sure you don't mind?" asked Alex, as she sat down on the bed and flipped open the laptop to navigate to Netflix.

"Mind what?"

"Taking pity on me."

She paused. "I'm not taking pity on you. I think it'll be fun."

"Because you can just go and do your own thing if you want."

"Danvers."

"Seriously, like, if you want to go--"

"Alex," she said, firmly.

"Yeah?"

"This is what I want to do. Okay?"

There was another soft exhale. "Okay."

***

"I don't mean this-this," Eleanor was saying on the screen, "although, frankly, I would  _ also  _ hit this-this."

"See, I told you, Eleanor is queer!" Maggie said, aloud.

"You may have a point," Alex allowed. "This is a wild episode. Who's the actor who plays Janet?"

"D'Arcy Carden."

"She's fantastic. I love her Chidi."

"It gets better."

Several minutes later, the episode came to an end.

"That was great," Alex said.

"Yeah, I really love that one," Maggie said, stifling a yawn.

"Tired?"

"Mmm, getting there."

"Should we stop for tonight?"

"I mean, I could…" She yawned again. "I could probably sleep, soon." She shut the lid of the laptop and placed it on the nightstand.

"Yeah," Alex said, "I get that." There was a pause. "Should I let you go?"

"I mean, I could talk for a bit, if you wanted." Maggie hoped that Alex wouldn't want to discuss Kelly, but it was clear she didn't want to be alone. Something inside of her just didn't want to let her go.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Wanna talk about the show or, uh, something else?"

There was a short pause. "I mean, maybe both, kind of."

"Go for it." Maggie shut her eyes in the dark room, curling up in the bed. It was almost like they were in bed together, back in the old days, where they'd talk for hours in the darkness, curled up with one another.

"Do… uh… do you… believe in, um, like, soulmates?"

She opened her eyes.

"You know, like Chidi and Eleanor," she added, hastily.

"Uh…" She considered. "Pretty sure we talked about this at one point… then… didn't we?"

"Yeah," she said, "just wondering if it had changed for you."

She thought about it. "I don't think it's changed or anything. I… uh, I don't really think that there are  _ soulmates _ the way the Ancient Greek myth says. I don't think that another person can really be your other half, not like that, because that means we're not complete people on our own."

"Mm," Alex acknowledged.

She exhaled. "But I think that we can have a lot of different people in our lives that leave marks on our hearts." She took a breath. "Who change us forever, whether they're in our day-to-day lives or not."

"Yeah," whispered Alex.

"I think that we just have to recognize when we encounter those people," she continued. "And, uh, make sure we hang on to them."

Alex was silent.

"Which is, you know, um, one reason why I'm kind of glad we got into this situation together," she volunteered.

Alex let out a small chuckle. "Yeah," she said. "It's been really nice to hang out with you again." She swallowed, audibly. "I've, uh… you know. Missed you."

She closed her eyes, letting the warmth of the statement wash over her, letting her heart swell. "I've missed you too, Alex," she said, directly, not really caring about how vulnerable she might be making herself. Above anything, in that moment, she needed Alex to know that she'd missed her.

Maggie heard Alex's inhalation and they sat there quietly for a moment or two.

"What about true love?" Alex asked, finally.

She opened her eyes again. This was getting into dangerous territory. "What do you mean?"

"You know," Alex said, shyly, "like the princess meets the prince and they live happily ever after?"

She took a careful breath, trying not to read into what Alex was asking, just trying to take her question at face value. "I don't think I believe in true love," she said, "not like that, no."

"No?" She sounded surprised.

"I mean…" She breathed. "If you're talking about the princess meeting another princess and falling in love instantly and getting their happy ending, then no, I don't. I think that's… well, it's literally a fairy tale. It's unrealistic. It's something we tell children, that we tell ourselves."

"Cynical," she remarked.

"Listen, Danvers, all relationships are made up of compromises. There's no such thing as a happy ending that doesn't involve some kind of compromise."

"I know compromise is a part of things," she protested.

"Right, and that's why you tried to get  _ the entire DEO _ on your side about the band or DJ argument," she teased.

"You heard J'onn! People like it less when they don't hear what they're expecting!"

"Whatever," she scoffed, with a grin. "I have Winn on my side."

"Winn's a thousand years in the future, you can't even claim him anymore."

Maggie narrowed her eyes. "You can't see it, but I'm glaring at you."

Alex laughed. "I think I know that glare well."

"Oh, you do," she grinned.

"Anyway," Alex continued, "yes, I understand compromise is a thing."

"Mm hmm," she said, not altogether convinced.

"But just because compromise is needed doesn't mean that true love can't exist, right?"

She shook her head. "No, I mean, the way I see it, if true love existed in that way, if  _ love _ was always enough to conquer the challenges a couple will face… then it would have been enough for us, wouldn't it?"

She heard Alex's sharp intake of breath.

"Sorry," she said, quickly, wincing. She hadn't intended to throw that at Alex.

"No," Alex replied, just as quickly, "it's okay. I get it."

There was an awkward silence between them. There hadn't been all that many of those moments over the last couple of weeks, especially after their argument. Still, it seemed as though some things were unresolved as of yet.

"I think…" she said, quietly, "that loving someone means making the conscious choice to keep loving them, keep choosing them, even when things are hard." She swallowed. "And, uh, if you don't make that choice, then I guess that says it all."

"I'm sorry I didn't make that choice," Alex said, softly, after a moment's pause.

She inhaled. Was she admitting that she should have? Or just apologizing? What did it mean? A dozen questions were on Maggie's lips and none of them would lead to anything good. "I'm sorry too," she said, finally. It was true. She was sorry that Alex hadn't chosen her over the idea of being a parent. She considered, not wholly sure she wanted the answer. "Why, uhm… why all the questions?"

"I've just been, you know, thinking about things. Stuff. Life. Choices," she replied. "And then Chidi and Eleanor being soulmates… and it kind of just went from there."

She nodded. "Got it."

"So… do you think Luce was right?"

"Luce… from  _ Imagine Me and You _ ?"

"Yeah."

"Right about what?"

"Knowing in the first moment."

"Ah," she said, the scene coming back to her. "How does she put it?" She thought for a moment, closing her eyes. "I think you know immediately, as soon as your eyes… Then everything that happens from then on just proves that you had been right in that first moment."

"That," Alex said. "Do you think she's right?"

She couldn't help but remember the first time she'd seen Alex, at the airport. This fed, this utterly beautiful fed, had walked right up to her and demanded to know what the hell she was doing to her crime scene. She swallowed. "I think sometimes you can know," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she breathed. "I… um… I mean, I had a girlfriend when we met, but I knew right from that encounter at the airport that you were special."

There was a pause.

"Sorry, I, you know, shouldn't have said anything," she muttered.

"I knew you were special, too."

She inhaled. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She chuckled, breaking the tension. "I didn't even know I was gay and yet…"

Maggie grinned. "I guess I kind of have that effect on some people," she teased.

"I was annoyed by you, but I couldn't get you out of my head."

She smiled. "I remember you telling me that."

"And that was even before you thought I was gay."

"In my defense," she argued, "you  _ were _ gay, even if neither of us knew it yet. Very, very gay."

"Incredibly gay."

"Super gay?" she joked.

She scoffed. "You can't have it both ways, Maggie, either I'm a Super Cheater or a Super Gay. Which is it?"

"If I had to choose? Super Gay, for sure."

Alex laughed. "Yeah, me too."

She chuckled and then broke into a yawn. "Sorry," she said, "I guess I'm more tired than I thought."

"Should I let you go?"

"Probably," she said. "Although it's been an interesting conversation for sure."

There was a pause.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I… uh…" She cleared her throat. "You know, you don't have to be there."

"You keep saying that, Danvers."

"Well, it's true."

Maggie sat upright in bed, suddenly wide awake and her heart pounding, with a single thought ringing through her mind. Did Alex  _ want _ her back at the apartment? Did she just keep saying that Maggie didn't need to be there so that Maggie would go back without Alex  _ asking  _ her? She took a breath.

"Alex."

"Yeah?"

"Alex, if, uh… if you want me there… you're going to have to ask me to go back." She paused for another breath. "Because that's what people do. They ask for what they want. They don't keep making comments around it, they don't allude to it. They just ask. So…" She swallowed. "Is there anything you'd like to ask me, Alex?"

There was a long silence and Maggie counted fourteen of her fast heartbeats before Alex spoke.

"Maggie, would you come back to the apartment for the rest of quarantine?" she asked, softly. "Please?"  


She exhaled. "You want me to?"

"Yes," she said, quickly.

"Then yes," Maggie replied. "I'll come back." She had absolutely no idea what it meant, but she now knew that Alex wanted her back at the apartment. Back with  _ her _ at the apartment.

"You will?"

"I will," she said. "But I have a condition."

"Anything."

"I want the bed tomorrow night."

Alex laughed. "You have a deal." She paused. "You want me to get Kara to go get you now? Or tomorrow at some point?"

She didn't even have to think about it. "You need some company now?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"Then now is fine. I'll just need a few minutes to change and pack."

"Okay. I'll text her and she'll be there soon."

"Okay."

"Maggie?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you," she said.

She smiled. "That's what friends are for, right?"

"Right."

"Okay. I'll see you soon."

"Bye."

She hung up and stood, flipping on the light. She grabbed fresh clothes and changed, right there in the cell, really hoping the cameras were still off, shoving her laptop in her backpack, pushing her clothes into the suitcase.

Fifteen minutes later, Kara dropped her off at Alex's balcony. "Thanks," she said to Maggie. "She's having a bit of a tough time with everything. It'll be good for her to have a close friend around."

She nodded. "Thanks for picking me up," she said.

"Of course."

The balcony door opened and there stood Alex. They waved goodbye to Kara and Maggie walked into the apartment.

She'd just put her bags down in the living area when Alex pulled her into a hug.

"Thank you for being here," she whispered.

She squeezed her back. "Anytime, Alex."


	14. Day 12

Alex woke up before her alarm. The memories of the night before crashed into her consciousness right as she yawned.

_ Maggie. _

She sat up, quietly, gazing over at the couch, where Maggie was sleeping soundly, her breaths deep and regular.

She sighed, a slight smile on her face. She'd finally told Maggie she'd needed her here. And she'd said okay. She had actually said okay. There had been no need to be coy or to talk around what she wanted, which was her friend to be there with her. They'd each had a glass of wine and worked a bit on the puzzle, while chatting about various things. None of them had to do with Kelly, but it had made Alex feel immeasurably better to have Maggie there.

She brought her knees up and folded her arms atop them, resting her chin on her right forearm, just watching the vaguely obfuscated form of her ex-fiancée in the bed, not twenty feet away.

Apart from anything else, Maggie was a great friend. She knew it was probably hard for Maggie to hear her thoughts about Kelly, even after all this time, so she'd done her best to shield her from them since the breakup.

She had, of course, spent a lot of time thinking over the last couple of days. Her pondering had ended up with a thought that she was only just now accepting -- maybe she and Kelly hadn't been a good match together anyway. It stung, still. That she'd been so wrong, that she had thought her relationship with Kelly had been equivalent to her relationship with Maggie?

It had been what had really prompted her questions to Maggie about soulmates and true love. Well, Eleanor and Chidi had prompted the soulmates question, which then led to the true love question, and the question about love at first sight.

In asking all of those questions, Alex had been thinking about how she'd felt about Maggie.

Were they soulmates? Was there such a thing as true love? Love at first sight?

Alex had dated several women over the last three years, but only Kelly had lasted longer than the first couple of dates. Alex chalked that up to the fact that they'd actually had a friendship before things turned romantic. Just like things had happened with Maggie.

She sighed. But she hadn't been struck by her the moment she'd first laid eyes on her, not like when she'd first met Maggie. She'd also never imagined a long-term future with Kelly, preferring to remain in the moment. They hadn't even been living together.

What Alex took away from her entire dating experience as a gay woman was that Maggie had been  _ it _ . She had been the woman she'd wanted to spend her life with. And she'd been floundering for three years, trying to find someone who was just like Maggie… who wanted kids.

Her entire life, she'd assumed she'd have kids. She  _ wanted _ to have kids. She wanted to help with homework and teach her kid to ride a bike or point out which constellation Auntie Kara came from. She wanted to be there for her kid's colds and skinned knees, for their first love and first heartbreak, for graduation and college. She wanted to watch as her kid's team won the city's soccer championship or a softball tournament or see them win the state science fair.

She wanted all those things.

Alex sighed as she refocused her gaze on Maggie's form.

But she also wanted  _ her _ .

***

After her shower, Alex stepped out of the bathroom with her hair still damp to find that Maggie was already up and folding the bed back into the couch.

"Sorry," she said, "did I wake you?"

Maggie shook her head. "Nah, I was just ready to be up." She put one of the pillows back on the couch and Alex put the other back on. "You hungry, Danvers?"

She nodded.

"French toast?"

Alex opened her mouth to object. She'd wanted to do something nice for Maggie, like make her breakfast, but she knew she was more liable to mess it up than not. "Sure," she said, "can I help?"

Maggie smiled. "Yeah."

Together, they walked into the kitchen.

"Do you have a baguette or just sliced bread?" Maggie asked, as she opened the fridge.

"Mmm, just sliced bread," she said, pulling the bagged loaf from the far edge of the counter and brandishing it.

"Okay," she nodded, pulling a couple of eggs and the milk out of the fridge and then pulling a bowl from the cupboard. "First step, we have to make the egg mixture. It's two eggs and about two-thirds of a cup of milk. You wanna grab the measuring cup?"

Alex moved around Maggie, trying not to brush against her, and opened the drawer where her measuring cups were kept. She found the right one and turned, snaking her hand forward to place it next to the bowl Maggie was already cracking the eggs into. She was careful not to touch Maggie in the process, no matter how natural it would have felt to do so, it would have been awkward.

She turned back and closed the drawer and went to get a large pan, which she placed on the stove and put a fair dollop of butter into it.

"So now you mix up the eggs and milk?"

Maggie nodded. "You can use a whisk or whatever, but a fork is usually fine," she said, quickly mixing the ingredients in the bowl. "You can add stuff like vanilla, if you want, but I kind of just like this, and then put a bit of powdered sugar on the finished product before adding maple syrup."

"I remember," she smiled. "I'm sorry I don't have powdered sugar. I guess I could ask Kara, but then--"

"Then she's just going to eat all of it herself," Maggie finished, grinning.

"Kinda, yeah," Alex said, her nose scrunched up.

"It's fine, it's almost as good with just the maple syrup." She looked at the bowl. "Okay, you see how you can hardly tell this used to be egg whites, egg yolks and milk?"

Alex peered over. "Yep."

"That's the consistency you're looking for." She looked over at the stove. "Okay, turn on the burner to medium-high."

Alex did so and Maggie opened up the bag of bread and pulled out four slices.

"So once that gets hot and the butter's melted all over the bottom of the pan," she said, grabbing a spatula, "you're going to want to soak a slice and place it in the pan and brown both sides -- without burning it." She grinned. "Think you can manage that, Danvers?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Yes, I think I can manage that,  _ Sawyer _ ," she retorted, trying not to smile hugely.

"Great. All yours." Maggie smiled and grabbed the coffee pot to get that started.

Maggie sliced up some cantaloupe into bite-sized pieces, placing a small cup of fruit at each of their places at the table. She'd then finished setting the table, all while Alex had worked hard to fry all four pieces of the bread while trying not to burn anything.

Fifteen minutes later, they both sat down at the table and Alex watched as Maggie took her first bite, waiting for a possibly sarcastic remark.

"Well?" she asked, as Maggie swallowed.

"This is pretty great, Alex," she smiled, taking another bite.

She blinked. "Yeah?"

"Mm, hmm," Maggie hummed, nodding.

She wasn't quite sure what she'd been expecting. A joke, certainly. Maybe some light teasing. She absolutely had not expected a compliment. She smiled. "Thanks for teaching me," she offered.

"Happy to."

Every so often, Maggie surprised her. And she was remembering how much she liked it.

***

After breakfast, Maggie cleaned up the dishes while Alex requisitioned a VPN account for Maggie from the IT department at the DEO. It was required so she could access the video footage on the internal DEO site to continue her investigation.

"Your account should be ready in about fifteen minutes," she said, looking over at the kitchen.

"Thanks, Danvers," Maggie said, rinsing the mixing bowl and leaving it to dry on the dishrack. She wiped her hands on the dish towel that was slung over her shoulder and placed it to dry on the handle of the oven door. "More coffee?" she asked.

"Please."

Alex stood and brought both of their mugs to the kitchen for refills.

"So what do you have going on at work today? More protocol review?" asked Maggie, as she poured them each more coffee.

Alex groaned and threw her head back. "Ugh, I wish. I'm done with those and now it's on to performance evaluations. So many performance evaluations." 

Maggie chuckled as she put the coffee pot back and opened the fridge to grab the honey for Alex's coffee. "Does the administrative part of the job get to you?" she teased.

"It's the  _ worst _ ," she complained.

"See," Maggie said, squeezing the honey into Alex's mug, "I think if you and your agents did  _ more _ paperwork as agents, you might think twice about rushing into things." She smiled and put the honey back in the fridge.

"Gross." She held out her hand and Maggie dutifully placed a spoon in it, which she used to stir the coffee, before handing it back to Maggie, who dropped it in the sink.

"I'm just saying, you think we're too slow and we think you're too fast and I think the paperwork is the difference."

She rolled her eyes. "This is one of the few advantages of working for a black ops organization. We can be fast and agile. We can launch a strike team in under fifteen minutes."

"Right, and completely ignore the rights of aliens, proper process and procedure…"

She snorted. "Sorry, you want us to take time to fill out the right paperwork while we let a dangerous creature like Parasite take out ten city blocks?"

"You know what I mean."

She sipped at her coffee. "I do," she conceded. "You'll notice I had to do paperwork to get you a VPN account. And also to get you access to the cameras in the first place."

Maggie chuckled as she picked up her mug and headed over to the table. "So you did. Thank you."

"You're welcome." She sat at the table, at Maggie's left, as usual. "What about you? Phorian stuff?"

"Yeah, lots of footage to go through, still, then gotta send out some uniforms to canvas anyone I think might have seen anything."

She nodded. "Sounds like a long day," she said.

"Probably." She sipped at her own coffee and then smiled. "But, then again, at least I'm not going to be doing performance evaluations for the next eight or so hours."

Alex groaned. "It's gonna be a long day for both of us, I think."

"More of The Good Place tonight?" Maggie offered. "Maybe pizza? My treat."

She brightened. "Yeah," she said, "I'd like that."

***

It was more of a slog than Alex had thought it would be. The evaluations were mind-numbing and she found her thoughts kept drifting back to her love life. She'd spent the last couple of days thinking a lot about her relationship with Kelly and thinking about what she wanted going forward.

The trouble was that she kept getting stuck on Maggie.

She'd dated. She'd seen what was out there.

In her entire life, she had never clicked with someone the way she did with Maggie. During their relationship, they had gotten along on every level -- physically, emotionally, sexually. She had never connected with someone else the way she had connected with Maggie, and she was beginning to realize she'd taken that for granted at the time. She'd had no idea that not all romantic relationships were going to be like that, where they'd be hitting on all cylinders so easily.

She was trying to go through Agent Wolf's evaluation and kept glancing over at Maggie. She was engrossed in the video footage, so she didn't see Alex's quick peeks.

How had she let her go? How had she been  _ so  _ convinced that she could find another version of Maggie out there, somewhere?

She took a sip of her coffee and forced herself to pay attention to the agent's evaluation.

Just a couple of minutes into it, though, her thoughts drifted again. It was stupid, right? She'd  _ just _ been broken up with. It was patently ridiculous to even think about Maggie like  _ that _ . It was too soon.

She snuck another look over at Maggie.

And yet…

She rolled her eyes at herself and tried to focus on Wolf's evaluation.

***

It was well past 8:30 when both women stopped working, both only stopping because their stomachs were gurgling.

After ordering the pizza, Maggie had left a $20 bill in an envelope, labelled "Stilton Pizza" just outside the front door with a note saying to knock when they left the pizza at the door.

"You actually have  _ cash _ ?" Alex had asked, surprised.

She'd shrugged. "I always try to have cash on me when I travel. It's usually faster than swiping a card when you're trying to catch a flight."

Alex had nodded. "Well, I can't complain. Can you imagine trying to  _ socially distance  _ or whatever while using a credit card to pay for pizza?"

"What I'm having trouble understanding is that the pizza place doesn't take online payment!"

"Right?" Alex had agreed. "It's 2020. What the hell?"

Maggie had shrugged. "Well, we have cash, so I guess it's fine for now." She looked over at the living area. "Do we wanna eat in front of the TV?"

"Sure."

Together, they'd gotten plates and napkins and, of course, a couple of beers, and set things up on the coffee table.

"To the end of a long day," Maggie said, holding her bottle out.

"I'll drink to that," Alex said, clinking the neck of her bottle to Maggie's. They both took a swig and Alex leaned back into the couch. "I can't believe I still have so many evaluations to do," she muttered. "How about you, any leads?"

"A couple," she nodded, "but I want to finish looking through the last of the feeds to see if I can find anything else, so that's gonna be another five, maybe six hours." She turned and looked over her shoulder at the laptops that were sitting closed on the dining table. "Maybe I should just do that tonight."

Alex snorted. "No. You absolutely are not going to do more work tonight."

"Alex--"

"Especially not another  _ five or six hours _ of work." She shook her head. "You put in like ten hours today. You deserve to relax." She looked over at her. "Okay?"

Maggie sighed and turned back. "Yeah. I just hate that Diana -- the Phorian -- is still in custody."

"I know," Alex said, reaching out, unthinkingly, and patting Maggie's knee lightly. "You'll rest tonight and get a fresh start tomorrow." She looked down and pulled her hand away. "Sorry," she muttered.

"It's okay," Maggie smiled. "And you're right. I'll be more helpful after I've slept." She grinned. "Tonight's my night in the bed, after all."

Alex laughed. "So it is."

There was a knock at the door and Alex got up to look out the peephole. She saw the delivery guy standing about ten feet away. "Did you get the envelope?" she called through the door.

"Yes, thanks!" he said.

"Okay, thanks," she called back.

She watched as he left and then opened the door to get the pizza. She shut and locked the door behind her. "Oh man, this is gonna be great," she said, breathing in the aroma. "Thank you," she said to Maggie, as she brought the box to the table.

"Least I could do," Maggie said, "for stealing the bed tonight."

Alex laughed. "Well, when you put it that way…" 

As Maggie started up The Good Place and they each took a slice of pizza, Alex briefly wondered if there was anything better than the evening they had planned together.

***

"In all this randomness, in this pandemonium, you and Chidi found each other…"

Alex swallowed at Janet's words, memories of her life with Maggie welling up inside of her.

"… isn't that remarkable?" Janet finished.

She exhaled. It  _ was _ remarkable. Out of all the cops who could have shown up at the airport, it had been  _ Maggie _ .  _ She _ was the one who kept cropping up in her investigation.  _ She _ was the one who had gotten her to start thinking about things.  _ She _ was the one who had listened to her.  _ She _ was the one who'd helped her come to terms with being gay.  _ She  _ had been who Alex had wanted to marry.

She took a swig of her almost-empty second beer, still lost in thought, until Eleanor was speaking again.

"... find happiness in the unique insanity of being here, now."

Alex laughed.

"What?"

"Oh, you know, there's  _ this  _ unique insanity of being here, now," she chuckled.

Maggie smiled. "Yeah, there's that," she allowed, holding out her beer bottle.

Alex clinked it and they both finished their beers as the episode ended.

"Wanna call it there?" Maggie asked. "Start fresh on Season Four tomorrow?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

Maggie turned off the television and, together, they brought the dishes and stuff back to the kitchen. Without even speaking, they worked as a team. Alex pulled down a plate for the remaining couple of slices of pizza. Then, Maggie wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge while Alex folded the box down to put into the recycling bin.

The dishes went into the sink, the beer bottles were all rinsed, and soon, they'd finished tidying.

Maggie yawned and looked up at the clock. "Man, we worked too late today," she muttered. "Can't believe it's already 10:30."

"Tired, huh?" Alex asked, feeling somewhat disappointed. She wanted to talk to her some more, if for no other reason that it would keep her thoughts from wandering too far.

"A little." Maggie looked over at her. "You okay?"

She shrugged.

"Alex."

She bit her lip and looked up at Maggie. "Sort of."

"What can I do?" she asked.

She blew out a breath. "It's silly."

"Try me."

Alex gazed into Maggie's brown eyes, feeling as though they had travelled back in time to more than three years ago. In her mind's eye, they were sitting at the bar, as Alex tried to express her thoughts, her feelings, about her orientation to her. And there Maggie was, steady, calm, gentle…

She nodded. "I, uh, I think…" She exhaled again, trying to use her words. "I have some thoughts about the show and they're turning into thoughts about  _ me _ and…" She swallowed. "I'm not sure if I want to talk about them or not, but I really, really don't want to be alone right now."

Maggie reached out and put her hands on Alex's shoulders. "You're not alone, all right? I'm here."

She smiled weakly, feeling very grateful. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She smiled back, squeezing Alex's shoulders gently. "I have an idea."

Fifteen minutes later, they had both changed into their pajamas and Maggie had made them both a cup of chamomile tea. And they were standing on their respective sides of the bed.

On the one hand, Alex would have done anything to get into bed with Maggie, if only to curl up with her. On the other hand, this felt wildly dangerous. She looked up at Maggie. "Are you  _ sure _ you're comfortable with me sitting on the bed with you?"

"Danvers, don't be silly. The bed is huge. We sit closer together on the couch or at the dining table than we'll be here."

"I just want to make sure you're sure," Alex said, hesitantly.

"Are  _ you _ not okay with this?" Maggie asked. "I mean, I'm even going to be under the covers. There's absolutely no reason to feel awkward."

"No, no, uh, I mean, I… I just want you to be okay."

"I'm fine, Alex." She got into the bed and looked up at Alex, expectantly.

Alex took a breath and propped up her pillows and carefully sat upright, on top of the covers, her back the pillows. She picked up her tea and took a sip.

Maggie leaned over and turned off her light and Alex did the same, so they were sitting there, quietly, in the dark.

"I've missed talks like this with you," Maggie murmured.

"Yeah?"

"Mm, hmm."

"Me too."

She heard Maggie swallow a mouthful of tea. "There's just something about the darkness that makes it okay. That makes it safe."

"Yeah," she breathed, trying not to remember being held by Maggie during their late-night chats, trying not to think of her lips finding Maggie's to kiss her goodnight in the darkness.

"So what's on your mind, Alex?"

_ You, _ is what she didn't say.  _ Us, _ is something else she didn't say.  _ Kids, _ is yet one more thing she refrained from saying. Instead, she swallowed. "I think I was wrong about Kelly," she said, quietly.

"How so?"

"I… I don't think we were really well-suited to one another."

"Oh?"

She shrugged. "She was nice. Cute. Smart." She sighed.

"But?"

"But I think she was just  _ there _ . You know?"

"Mmm."

"I mean, she liked me and I thought she was cute, and we were already friends, so like… why not?"

"Seems reasonable."

Alex blew out a breath. "But it wasn't the same."

There was a long pause. "The same as what?" Maggie asked, quietly.

She took a long drink of her tea. "The same as us," she breathed. She heard Maggie's intake of breath.

"Oh."

Alex took another sip. "It wasn't… It wasn't like it was with us," she admitted, softly. "I mean, I get it, relationships are different, but…" She sighed. "It wasn't the same."

"I know what you mean," Maggie replied, speaking just above a whisper. "I haven't…" She paused. "Me either, you know?"

"Yeah." Alex chewed at her lower lip for a moment, thinking. "I guess the stuff with Eleanor and Chidi is still in my head."

"We weren't like them, Alex."

Alex felt that in her chest, and it hurt. "No?"

"No. They're fictional characters on a television show."

Alex took a drink of her tea. "Felt like it, though. Sometimes."

After a too-long pause, Maggie responded. "Yeah. Sometimes it did."

She finished up her tea and put the cup on her nightstand and folded her hands across her stomach. "You don't believe in soulmates, you said."

"Right," Maggie agreed.

She shut her eyes. "Sometimes, Maggie, I think maybe we  _ were  _ soulmates." She held her breath, listening for Maggie's reaction.

There was nothing for so long that Alex thought maybe Maggie hadn't heard her. "If it makes any difference," she finally said, "if there was ever anyone who could make me believe in soulmates, it was you."

It was her turn to inhale sharply. She could feel the telltale prickling of tears welling up in her eyes, even though they were closed.

"You changed my life, Alex," she continued. "And I changed yours. And together, we were really happy for a while."

Alex felt the tears escape from beneath her eyelids.

"And no matter how messed up this quarantine thing is, I am  _ really _ glad we ran into each other at the conference. And I… I'm really grateful for you asking me to stay with you." Alex heard Maggie place her own cup on the other nightstand. "I've missed you. Missed playing pool with you, having pizza and beer. Missed singing Barenaked Ladies songs at each other. Missed working on cases together."

"I've missed you too," she whispered. Alex felt some movement and then felt Maggie's hand on her elbow, which slid up to capture her hand and squeeze it gently.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't be what you needed me to be, Alex."

What had been a few stray tears turned into a flood. "Yeah," she said, trying to hold back a sob. "Me too," she managed.

Maggie moved over and pulled Alex into her arms. "Shhh, Alex, it's okay. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere, all right?"

She let herself go, let herself be held by Maggie, resting her head on her chest, wrapping her arm around her waist.

As she cried herself to sleep, Alex Danvers was sure of just one thing and that was that she would do anything to be held by Maggie Sawyer every night for the rest of her life.


	15. Day 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My updates have been a bit sporadic over the last few weeks, for which I apologize. It was absolutely my intention to keep getting updates out once or twice a week. There are a couple of reasons why I haven't been able to keep up with my intention at the outset of this story. I thought I'd share them with you here.
> 
> The first is that this is a hard thing to write! :D As many of you know, this wasn't intended to be a full-on fix-it fic to start, mostly because there's so much work to be done to bring these two back together when we take the so-called "canon" universe into consideration. But I decided relatively early on that I was able to see a path for these two and so I've been trying to lead them back to one another. There's still work for them to do and they'll do a bunch of it in this chapter. That said, it's super difficult to _believably_ get Alex and Maggie to agree on some important things. It was also hard to remove Kelly without making her out to be a villain and without glossing over Alex's feelings about the breakup. Basically, this is going deeper than my usual fare and it's been a big challenge, but I've really been enjoying it.
> 
> The second reason my updates have been sporadic is because, somehow, in the midst of a global pandemic, I've met someone. This is perhaps not surprising to those of you who follow me on Twitter, who have seen "K" on my daily list of things for which I'm grateful. While the pandemic and an international border are currently conspiring against us, there is no doubt in my mind that she will be very important to me for a very long time. As such, perhaps understandably, much of my free time has been spent with her instead of writing. (Though she is very encouraging of my writing!) There are a lot of things in this story that Alex and Maggie have said or thought or experienced that harken back to my conversations with her and, truly, I don't think that this story would be half as authentic without my having met her. So while she is partly to blame for these delays, she's also the reason I think I've gotten Alex and Maggie to this point. I don't think I could have done it without her.
> 
> K, ma chère, this chapter is for you. <3

Alex woke up slowly, the memories of the night before cascading into her consciousness as she became aware of an arm around her and a steady heartbeat below her ear. She cracked an eyelid and realized she was in Maggie's arms, her head on Maggie's chest, her arm flung across Maggie's waist. She swallowed, trying not to move, attempting to relish this moment of peace which might never come again. Maggie had held her as she'd cried. And had continued to hold her for hours.

She felt so content in Maggie's arms. It had always felt like coming home. She knew it was corny and cliché, but it was how sliding into Maggie's arms felt. The scent of her -- and it was Maggie's scent, not just her shampoo or soap -- always relaxed her, calmed her down. Feeling her chest rise and fall with each slow, deep breath always made it easy for Alex to match her breathing, further calming her.

They hadn't moved at all. It wasn't quite morning yet, judging by how dark the apartment still was. Alex inhaled deeply, through her nose, letting Maggie's scent tickle her nostrils. There was no part of her that wanted to move, but she knew she should probably get up and go to the couch.

She slowly lifted her arm off of Maggie's midsection and then started to lift her head up off of Maggie's chest.

Maggie's arm tightened. "It's okay," she whispered. "I've got you."

Alex inhaled sharply as Maggie pulled her closer.

"It's okay," she whispered again.

"Yeah?" Alex breathed.

"Mm hmm," Maggie hummed.

She snuggled back up to Maggie. "You sure?" she asked, quietly, as she settled her head on Maggie's chest.

"Go back to sleep, Danvers," she said, sleepily, holding her close.

"Okay," she whispered. She was asleep again within moments.

***

When next she awoke, it was as Maggie's alarm went off. She was in the same position as earlier, curled up with Maggie, who was now reaching over to hit snooze on her phone.

"Sorry," Alex said, pulling her arm back and sitting up and back.

Maggie looked over at her after hitting snooze. "Sorry?"

"I mean, uh, you know, for  _ that _ ," she said, gesturing inelegantly at the space next to Maggie that she'd just vacated.

She shook her head. "Alex, it was fine. Nothing to be sorry about."

"Yeah?" she breathed.

"Yeah," Maggie said, sitting up. "Nothing happened except that my friend was hurting and I wanted to make sure she was okay."

She swallowed. "Well. Thank you, then."

Maggie smiled at her and, God, it was early-morning Maggie smiling at her. "Anytime, Danvers."

With that, Maggie got out of the bed and headed to the bathroom to shower, leaving Alex alone with her thoughts.

***

Maggie made them some omelettes while Alex showered and, after their breakfast, they got back to work. The morning passed quickly and, before they knew it, it was already past one in the afternoon.

Alex stood up and stretched. "Want some lunch?" she asked, heading to the fridge.

She frowned once she got there, turning back to look at Maggie, who was intently staring at her screen.

"Mags?"

"Hm?" she asked, not turning around.

"I was just wondering if you wanted lunch or whatever."

"Uh, yeah, sure," she said, still looking at the screen.

"What's up?"

She turned. "Sorry," she apologized, "I think I might have something useful for the Phorian case."

"Yeah?" Alex pulled a bag of baby carrots out of the fridge and went to the cupboards to get a tupperware container. "Tell me about it." She dumped the carrots into the container and started washing and rinsing them in the sink.

"So I don't have a view of the alley where the Phorian allegedly killed the victim, right?"

"Right," Alex nodded, "sorry we don't have that particular spot covered."

"It's okay," she said, "because I think I found something that could help anyway."

Alex drained the container and wiped the outside of it dry with the dishtowel. "Dip?" she asked, hefting the container of carrots.

"Huh? Oh, sure," she said.

Alex reached into the fridge and pulled out a container of a creamy garlic dip, along with some stuff for sandwiches. "So what did you find?"

"Check it out," she said, picking up her laptop and bringing it to the counter, turning her screen so Alex could see. "This is the corner of Marine View and Elm, and the timestamp is 11:42pm, which is in the window of the medical examiner's estimated time of death, and that matches up with the statement from the eye-witness."

"Okay, what am I looking for?" she asked, popping a carrot into her mouth.

"Here, watch this." She hit play on the video and Alex saw a man and a woman walking down Marine View. They turned left, down Elm. Elm was a laneway that didn't permit traffic and was where the murder had occurred. Unfortunately, it didn't have any traffic cameras or DEO cameras showing the full length of the lane. "Meanwhile, we have the traffic camera at the intersection of Flower and Division Street, just two blocks away, showing Diana driving east on Division literally one minute later at 11:43pm." She switched to the other video and played it, showing the Phorian in her car, driving through the intersection.

"A minute isn't a big window to kill someone," Alex remarked, chewing on another carrot.

"Right?"

"Can you follow Diana back on any of the cameras the DEO has? I know that was the only traffic cam you caught her on."

"I looked," Maggie said, "but this is the best I can do with showing the victim and the witness walking down the laneway a minute before Diana's driving away." She looked at Alex. "What do you think?"

"I don't know," she said, "that might not be enough to exonerate her, but definitely enough for reasonable doubt."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing," she said. "And even with the DEO cameras, I can't find evidence that Diana was at the club she said she was at."

"Nothing?"

She shook her head. "There are two DEO cameras in the vicinity and I don't see either Diana or her car anywhere nearby."

"Do we know for a fact that she was at the club?"

Maggie frowned. "Come to think of it, no. There's no hard evidence. There was nothing on her credit cards or bank statements. She said she paid cash for a couple of drinks and left the receipt."

Alex frowned "Well, that tells me she wasn't at the club."

"Right?" She sighed. "If I could figure out where she was, I might be able to find proof that she couldn't have killed the victim."

"Do you have any access to Diana?"

"I could get a colleague to go talk to her, but she would probably want her attorney present, who would probably advise her not to say anything."

Alex considered. "What if Supergirl talked to her? Do you think she'd want her attorney there if Kara explained we're on her side? You know, talked to her alien to alien?"

"You think Kara would do it?"

"I don't see why not. Let me check with her."

"Thanks, Danvers."

"What are friends for?" she smiled. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and called her sister. "Kara, how would you like to do us a favour?" She paused and rolled her eyes. "Yes,  _ another _ favour." She sighed. "All the potstickers you want, on me, yes."

***

"Thanks, Kara," Maggie said, "that's really helpful." She finished scribbling down some notes. "Okay, sure. And yes, of course, we'll see you tomorrow for dinner and Pandemic to celebrate the end of quarantine." She looked over at Alex, who was standing in the kitchen, making them some tea. "We haven't forgotten we owe you all the potstickers, no."

Alex rolled her eyes.

"Okay, great. Thanks, Kara. See you tomorrow." She hung up and put her phone down.

"Did she find anything out?" Alex asked, coming back to the table with a mug for each of them.

"Thanks," Maggie smiled. "I think so. I just need to see if I can find evidence of Diana leaving this other location."

"What's the location?" Alex asked. "I could help look."

"Thor and Main," she said, "but you have all your evals to do, don't worry about it."

"No, I want to help," she replied. "If that's okay."

Maggie smiled at her. "Okay, sure. You want to take Main and Division and see if you can find her?"

Alex nodded. "What's the plate number?"

"7PTX521."

"Got it." Alex opened up the internal DEO site that would let her navigate through the various cameras. "So the timestamp on Flower was what, 9:43?"

"Yeah."

"So I should be looking from maybe 9:37 on? That sound right?"

"I think so. If I can spot her getting into the car on Thor and Main, maybe we can narrow that down even more."

"Cool." Alex put in the date and skipped ahead to 9:30, 9:35, then finally 9:37pm on the night of the murder. She set the speed to double-time and scanned the footage, looking for a green sedan with the right plate number. From the angle of the camera, she should be able to spot it coming down Main and turning left onto Division pretty easily.

"Got her," Maggie said. "9:39, getting into her car that's parked on Thor after leaving a motel."

"A motel?"

"Oh yeah, it's complicated. She's seeing someone who's cheating on his wife, apparently, which is why she lied and said she was at a club. She doesn't want to pull him into this mess and ruin the marriage."

"Yeah, that sounds messy. Also, considerate of Diana. Not exactly behaviour we'd expect from a cold-blooded killer."

"Right?" Maggie thought for a moment. "So check 9:41 onwards."

"Got it." Alex skipped ahead and, at 9:41:37, she saw the green car with a license plate of 7PTX521 turn left off of Main. "Got her. 9:41:37 is when she made the turn onto Division."

"For real?" Maggie leaned over to watch. "God, Alex, I think this proves it definitively. There's no way she could have stopped the car, gotten out, killed the victim, then gotten back in to be caught on the traffic cam on Flower in what, like, 90 seconds?" She was beaming. "I gotta call this in." She looked over at her. "I can send this footage to the NCPD?"

Alex nodded. "Yeah, I'll authorize it. Let me fill out the paperwork and I'll send it securely to a server where your IT department can grab it as evidence."

"Thanks," she said, picking up her phone. "Let's hope this does the trick."

***

It was past seven and they were cooking tacos together, a Barenaked Ladies playlist on in the background. Maggie hadn't heard from her colleagues yet. They had been trying to get the district attorney to drop the charges in light of the evidence, and still had to get a judge to sign off on things before they could release Diana, even if the DA was amenable.

"It probably won't happen tonight," Alex told her, handing her a bottle of beer. "So just relax. You did great today, Maggie."

She smiled. "Couldn't have done it without you, Danvers."

"Yeah, well," she shrugged, "I'm just happy I could help."

"No, for real," she said. "Without the DEO cameras, I wouldn't have known she wasn't at the club. Or that she was trying to protect her boyfriend. We never would have known why the only cam we had her on was at Flower and Division. And your cameras show concrete proof why it can't be Diana."

Alex held out her own beer bottle and Maggie lightly clinked the necks together. "Always here for you, Maggie," she said, quietly, before taking a swig.

Together, they finished preparing the tacos, with Alex browning and seasoning the ground beef, with only the bare minimum amount of supervision from Maggie. They had just brought everything to the table when Maggie's phone rang.

"Sawyer," she said, answering it immediately.

Alex held her breath and watched.

"Thanks so much, Captain," she said, a huge smile on her face. "Yes, I'll pass your thanks on to Director Danvers. Thank you." She looked up at Alex. "That's it, she's free."

"That's amazing!" Alex beamed. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, so much, for your help," she said, taking the few steps towards Alex, her arms outstretched.

She smiled and stepped into the hug, holding her close. "Anytime," she whispered, her eyes closed, not wanting the moment to end.

They stood like that for a moment before Maggie pulled back. Alex still had her arms loosely around her and she gazed down into Maggie's brown eyes and did what came naturally.

She bent down slowly and, giving Maggie every opportunity to pull away, she found her lips with her own and kissed her softly.

It was a short kiss, a gentle kiss, but it felt  _ right _ . And Maggie kissed her back. Both women pulled apart slightly afterwards, looking into each other's eyes.

"You okay?" Alex asked.

"Yeah," Maggie whispered. "You?"

"Oh, yes."

With that, Maggie pushed up on her toes and pulled Alex towards her, kissing her thoroughly.

Alex held her closely, as the kiss deepened, feeling the length of Maggie's body pressing against hers. Nothing in the last three years had felt this amazing.

Maggie pushed them towards the couch, the backs of Alex's thighs hitting the back of the couch, causing her to sit on it, bringing her down to Maggie's level.

Alex's hands slid down to Maggie's hips, untucking her shirt from her jeans, her fingers slipping underneath to feel the warmth of Maggie's skin. It was soft, just as she remembered. She dragged her hands up Maggie's back to unfasten her bra.

Maggie, meanwhile, was working on Alex's shirt, fumbling with the buttons, while the two of them continued to kiss, suddenly desperate for one another.

Alex finally managed to undo Maggie's bra and then Maggie stopped abruptly, pulling back, leaving Alex's shirt half-open.

"What's wrong?" she asked, a bit out of breath, her hands sliding back to Maggie's waist. "I thought this was okay?"

Maggie leaned in and gently kissed her. "I want this," she said, quietly. "You. Me. Us. This." She looked deep into Alex's eyes. "But…"

"But?"

She gave a sad smile that made Alex's heart ache. "But isn't this just going to bring us back to where we were, back then?"

Alex slipped her hands out from under Maggie's shirt and brought them to cradle her face in her hands. "I want you, too."

"Wanting wasn't the problem then, Alex.  _ Wanting _ has never been the problem."

"I know," she acknowledged.

"So? Things haven't changed," she said.

"Haven't they?" She dropped her hands down and took Maggie's into her own. "You've come back into my life."

"I was in your life three years ago."

Alex inhaled and nodded. She swallowed. "Yeah, I, uh, I've been thinking, uh, a lot, um, about that, you know, over the last couple of weeks."

"Me too."

She tilted her head to the side, noting she'd have to come back to  _ that _ later. She took another breath. "I, uh…" She exhaled. "I was wrong," she said, simply. "I… I don't need to be a mom."

Maggie stared at her. "What?" she whispered.

She blew out a breath. "If it means I don't get to be with you," she said, "then… then I don't need to be a mom."

"Alex."

She shook her head. "I don't." She squeezed Maggie's hands. "And, uh, I'm…" She exhaled again. "I'm so sorry I didn't realize that three years ago." She looked into Maggie's eyes. "I was wrong. You are absolutely enough for me. And I will spend the rest of my life apologizing for my mistake, if you'll let me."

Maggie shook her head, slowly. "Alex, I…" She exhaled, her breath uneven. "I've wanted to hear those words for so long. Are you sure? Do you know what you're saying? I mean, you just got broken up with, there's a global pandemic and we've been in quarantine, and--"

"I was wrong," she said, insistently, interrupting her. "I was  _ so  _ wrong. To let you go, to let anything come between us? I was wrong." She brought up her right hand to cup Maggie's cheek. "Maggie, I've realized over the last couple of weeks that I've been looking everywhere  _ for you _ ."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she breathed.

"So… you don't need to be a mom."

She shook her head.

Maggie inhaled. "Are you going to resent me if we never have kids?"

She shook her head again. "No. I mean it, Maggie. I'd rather be with you than have kids." She smiled. "The thought of a life together, with you…" She breathed. "That's what I need." She chuckled. "I mean, I know we're skipping some steps here and I'm making some assumptions about what this," she said, waving her index finger back and forth between them, "what this means, but…" 

"I want that too, Alex," she said, nodding, eyes bright with unshed tears.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she whispered.

Alex's heart was full to bursting. She reached out and pulled Maggie to her and kissed her deeply for several moments, luxuriating in their closeness.

Once they broke apart, Alex smiled over at her. "You, uh, you said you'd been thinking? About this, I guess?"

Maggie swallowed and nodded. "Yeah, I…" She pulled back a bit and twisted her hands together, nervously.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked. "Whatever it is, it's okay."

She walked away, towards the table, where the food lay forgotten. "I've been thinking about a lot of things over the last couple of weeks," she said, looking out the window towards the city. "About you and me and us, what happened then, what's happening now…"

"Yeah, me too."

"And that conversation we had. After, you know, the fight."

"Uh huh." She wasn't quite sure where this was leading.

Maggie sighed. "And I can't stop thinking about what you said that day."

"What? What did I say?"

"That you think I'd be a great mom."

She froze. "What?"

Maggie turned around. "I don't know that I want to have kids, Alex."

"Okay…"

"But I don't think I'm as solid as I was on  _ not _ having them."

Alex blew out a breath, grateful she was seated, however precariously, on the back of the couch. "Uh… what… uh, what, exactly, does that, you know, mean?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure yet."

Her thoughts were whirling. "So… do you… I mean…" She exhaled. "Do you think you'd consider, uh, having a child?"

Maggie's eyes met hers. "That's not what you're asking me."

She inhaled sharply. "No. It's not."

"You're asking me if I would consider having a child  _ with you _ ."

She swallowed. "Yes. That's what I'm asking." Alex held her breath.

"Yes," she said, finally. "I would."

Alex was speechless.

"I mean, I'm not saying it's definitely gonna happen, okay?" Maggie said, clarifying things.

She nodded.

"But I'm not saying it won't happen." She gave Alex a half-smile. "Can we… just see how our life together goes?"

She nodded again, still without the ability to speak.

"And if, you know, it's something we  _ both _ want, down the road… then, yes, I would absolutely consider having a child." She smiled. "With you."

Alex exhaled, shakily. "I… I get it. It's… uh, not a sure thing." She took a breath. "And if it doesn't happen, I still want to spend my life with you," she said, very clearly. "And if it does, Maggie, you are gonna be such a great mom."

She smiled, taking a few steps back towards her. "So are you, you know."

Alex stood up, reached out and pulled her into her arms, just holding her close. "I love you, Maggie Sawyer."

"I love you, Alex Danvers," she murmured.

Alex closed her eyes.  _ This  _ was what perfection felt like. Her head was still spinning and, after a moment, she chuckled with a realization.

"What?"

"I can't believe I'm going to have to be grateful for a global pandemic for the rest of my life, for bringing you back to me," she said.

Maggie pulled back, grinning, her dimples showing. "Just one more weird part of our history, Danvers. Think you can deal with it?"

"Definitely." She bent down and kissed Maggie gently.


	16. Day 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your patience, folks, I know it's been a while in coming. Hopefully the end of the fourteen days of their quarantine, plus an epilogue, has been worth the wait!
> 
> Happy new year to you all and please stay home, if you can.

Maggie woke up slowly, aware that an arm was around her waist, that a solid warmth was behind her and her neck was being tickled by soft exhalations. She smiled. Being spooned by Alex was absolutely delightful. She cracked an eye open and saw the clock -- 5:29am. Still plenty of time to sleep. She smiled. They certainly deserved their rest. After their conversation, they'd kissed a bit more and, giggling like a couple of schoolgirls, had returned to their dinner.

"So, uh," Alex had said, after a couple of minutes, "what… I mean…" She had exhaled. "I know we can't pick up where we left off."

Maggie had smiled and nodded. "Right."

"So where does that leave us?"

She'd chewed thoughtfully. "What, you mean like, labels? Relationship status?"

"Let's start with that," Alex had replied.

"Well, I'd like to be dating you. Monogamously."

"So, uh, girlfriends?"

Maggie had shrugged. "What do you think?"

"I know we can't just jump back to being engaged."

She'd stifled a chuckle. That was pure Alex. Deciding what she wanted and going for it. "No, we can't. Apart from anything else, there should be a proposal before that." She'd shot Alex a look. "Don't even think it, Danvers."

Alex had laughed. "I could argue and say I wasn't thinking anything, but I'd really like to make sure we communicate more this time around, and it wouldn't be good to start off this relationship with a lie, right?"

Maggie had smiled reassuringly. "Look, after our talk, I think it's pretty clear that we both want the same thing. And if that's the case, there's no rush. We can just enjoy being together."

Alex had taken a breath and nodded. "Yeah," she'd exhaled. "Yeah, you're right. We can just take our time." She'd looked up at Maggie. "Even if I don't want us to take our time."

That had caused Maggie to laugh. "Danvers," she'd said. " _ Alex _ . I'm not going anywhere. Okay?"

She'd taken another breath and nodded. "Okay." She'd cleared her throat. "So, girlfriends."

"Girlfriends," she'd repeated.

"And, uh… are we… uh… the kind of girlfriends who live together or not?"

She'd chuckled. "Alex."

"Okay, so we're not the kind of girlfriends who live together."

Maggie had reached out and taken Alex's hand. "You know it's not a rejection, right?"

Alex, eyes watery, had nodded. "I know," she'd said, blowing out a breath.

"Feels like one?"

She'd nodded again.

"Alex. We're just gonna try to find our way back to each other, okay? Like, let's have dates! And hang out together. And spend the night with each other. And then maybe, once the pandemic is better in a few months, we can find a bigger place for the both of us."

She'd furrowed her brow at that. "I mean, I know it's not huge, but we lived here just fine."

"Yeah, but Alex, what about Gertrude?"

She'd smiled. "Oh." She'd squeezed Maggie's hand. "Okay." She'd tilted her head and looked back at Maggie. "Girlfriends who spend the night with each other?"

Maggie had grinned. "Well, after dinner, after we clean up, I kind of thought we could spend the rest of the night getting… reacquainted with one another. If you're okay with that."

Alex had blushed faintly. "That would be very nice."

And so they had ended up in bed together, Alex on her side of the bed and Maggie on hers, both in their pajamas. Alex had been nervous and awkward and it had been Maggie who had reached out to her to pull her close. They'd started out just snuggling contentedly before Maggie had gently kissed Alex. Soft, slow, gentle kisses had become firmer, as Alex's confidence grew. Maggie had smiled into a particularly forceful kiss, as Alex's hand had come up from her hip to cup her breast through her tank top.

"I've missed you," Alex had said roughly, her voice filled with desire.

"I've missed you too," Maggie had replied, gasping, as Alex had rubbed her thumb over her nipple, through the fabric. "So much, Alex."

Alex had pulled back and looked at her in the eye. "I love you, Maggie."

"And I love you," she'd replied.

Maggie smiled, remembering how the urgency of reconnecting with one another had overwhelmed them. She'd had every intention of going slowly, for Alex, who had seemed a little nervous, but she had been  _ quite _ persuasive in convincing her that she was okay, and so their first round had been less gentle than she'd intended.

She hadn't minded, and neither had Alex, as they lay curled up together in one another's arms, gasping for air, afterwards. "Still got my number, Danvers," she'd said quietly, wishing she'd brought a glass of water to bed.

"You've still got mine," Alex had croaked. "God, I forgot how badly you dehydrate me. Water?"

"Oh yes, please," she'd said, uncomfortably aware of how dry her mouth was.

Alex had kissed her lightly and pushed herself up out of bed and headed to the kitchen to get two glasses of water.

She'd returned with the water and both of them had taken a couple of moments to drink deeply.

"God," Alex had muttered, "you do such things to me."

Maggie had grinned. "Yeah?"

"Oh yeah."

"Well, you do a lot of wonderful things to me too, you know."

Alex had drained her glass and smiled at her, an eyebrow raised. "Ready for round two?"

She'd smiled and finished her water. "Definitely," she'd said, putting her glass down on her nightstand.

And so it had continued, until Maggie had lost track of how many times they'd had one another, and the two of them had fallen asleep curled up together sometime after three in the morning.

She intertwined her fingers with Alex's, which were resting loosely over her abdomen, Alex's right arm resting on Maggie's hip. She had missed everything about Alex, but perhaps it was this, these quiet moments where she could hear Alex breathe, could feel her solid warmth pressed against her back, that she had missed the most.

"I've got you," Alex whispered, sleepily, snuggling in closer. "Sleep."

"Okay," she whispered back. A smile on her face, Maggie fell back to sleep, unable to imagine a moment where she could possibly be more content or more at peace.

***

They spent the day in bed, exploring one another, unable to satiate their desire after so long apart. That is, until Alex's phone rang around five.

"Oh God, it's Kara."

"Shit. Dinner."

Alex nodded and picked up the phone to answer it. "Hey!"

Maggie watched as Alex bit her lip while listening to her sister. "Yeah, sorry, my notifications were off or whatever, sorry. Yes, we're still on for dinner. Pizza?" She looked at Maggie who nodded. "Yeah, pizza's great." She looked at the face of the watch on the inside of her right wrist. "Uhh, yeah, 45 minutes is fine."

Maggie was already out of bed and heading to the bathroom. They'd have to shower together to have enough time before Kara came over.

"Sorry, I just figure that over the phone is maybe not the best way to tell her!" Alex called.

She smiled. "That's okay," she said, calling back, as she turned on the water. "Come on, we need to shower."

The shower was brief -- well, as brief as they could make it. They did take a bit of time to wash one another and stole several long, languid kisses. They managed to pull themselves away from one another long enough to get out of the shower and dry off before getting dressed. Alex even dried her hair to make it look like they both hadn't just showered.

Maggie made the bed while Alex was drying her hair, and then went about clearing away the rest of the evidence. There were several glasses of water, a couple of toys and the bottle of lube on Alex's nightstand that all needed to be put away or washed and stored.

By 5:43pm, they were looking presentable and the apartment was clean enough to pass even a slightly more-than-cursory inspection by a certain Girl of Steel.

Just a couple of minutes later, Kara arrived, food in hand, and suddenly burst into laughter.

"What?" asked Alex.

"What was the bet?"

"What bet?"

Maggie paled, understanding what Kara was asking.

"The bet that Maggie obviously won, because she smells like you and your bed smells of her, too."

Alex's eyes went wide.

Maggie chuckled, drawing Kara's attention. "That super smell, Kara, never not creepy."

Kara stuck her tongue out at her. "Well?"

"It was a bet about one of my cases, you know, Diana? The alien you visited?"

"Oh! What happened to her, anyway?"

"You helped free her," Alex said, stepping in smoothly. "The information you gave us helped Maggie find exonerating evidence."

"Yeah? That's awesome!" Kara said, beaming, hopefully having forgotten entirely about the made-up bet.

"Yeah, thank you so much," Maggie said, "we never would have freed her if not for you."

"All in a day's work for Supergirl," she grinned. "So, pizza? Potstickers? I brought a bunch. And someone owes me $43.29. Plus tip."

"I got it," Maggie said, pulling out sixty dollars from her wallet.

"Thanks," said Alex. "And yes, let's eat, I'm starving!" Her stomach rumbled audibly at the same moment as if to punctuate her statement.

Soon enough, they were digging in, listening to Kara talk about the state of the world outdoors. The president was taking things seriously and there were mandatory mask mandates for everyone in public spaces across the nation. People were instructed to work from home if it was possible. Large gatherings were forbidden and subject to fines.

"It's a different world out there," Kara was saying. "Restaurants can only do takeout, all dining rooms are closed. There's a lack of  _ toilet paper _ , if you can imagine, because people are hoarding it."

"Hoarding toilet paper? Not like, water? Milk? Eggs? Bread?" Maggie frowned.

"Don't get me started on the bread," Kara muttered, "Catco is dedicating a _ six-page spread _ to sourdough starters."

"Hard-hitting journalism," remarked Alex, with a grin.

"I don't want to talk about it," she grumped.

"Well, at least the president is taking things seriously," said Maggie. "Can you imagine if he wasn't?"

"It would be chaos," Alex said. "Think about it. If it's aerosolized, and one person spreads to three people, that's something like…" She paused, clearly doing the math in her head. "Like almost 60,000 people could get it from just one person."

"That many?" Kara was aghast.

Alex nodded soberly. "One person to three people. Then three people to nine people. Nine people to twenty-seven people. Twenty-seven people to eighty-one. Eighty-one people to two hundred and forty three…"

Maggie gave a low whistle. "Serious exponential growth."

"Exactly," Alex agreed, finishing her last slice of pizza. "If anything, I think the president isn't quite doing enough, but hopefully this will keep the initial cases low until we learn more about it and how to contain it."

"Well, on  _ that _ note, anyone want to play Pandemic?" Maggie grinned.

Kara looked at them suspiciously. "Uh, are you guys sure? I mean, uh, didn't you two get into a fight the last time we played?"

Maggie hid a grin behind her hand, but her eyes twinkled at Alex.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Alex said. "Right, Maggie?"

"Right, Danvers," she somehow managed to say without laughing.

As before, Kara used her super-speed to set up the board. They drew cards to see which roles they'd get. Maggie got the scientist and just held it out to exchange with Alex and whatever she got. Alex handed her own card, the medic, to Kara, and gave Kara's original card to Maggie, taking the scientist card for herself. Maggie would be the quarantine specialist this time. It was a very handy role. Any new infections in the city where the quarantine specialist was or any of the connecting cities would be nullified. It was a great way to handle a hot spot.

"Well, this is a lot better than the dispatcher," she murmured as Kara dealt out the cards and started the game. "Oh, wait!" Maggie said.

"What?"

"I was thinking about this last time," she said. "Don't you think that having the medic go  _ last _ of the three of us would make sense? Like if everything goes to hell, the medic should be able to help?"

Alex thought about that. "Oh, that makes sense. And…" She thought for a moment. "And if I'm the scientist, I should go first and you should go second because the quarantine specialist is almost as useful as the medic."

"That's what I was thinking," she nodded.

"So… I'm going  _ last _ ?" Kara asked. "But I always go first!"

"I think it'll be better this way," Alex assured her.

"Huh."

"Think of it as you showing up as Supergirl, just in the nick of time," Maggie grinned.

"Oh." Kara thought about it for a moment, the crinkle in between her eyebrows forming. "Well, okay." Still crinkling, she looked up. "Doesn't that break the rules?"

Maggie tried really hard not to roll her eyes.

"Kara, do you want to win? I don't know about you, but I do."

"Well, yes,  _ obviously _ , I want to win."

"Then go last. Go on, eat the last three slices of pizza and the last four potstickers and then it'll be your turn."

Kara, still frowning, got up and went to the kitchen to get the remaining portions of food. "More beer?" she asked.

"Sure," Maggie said.

"Uh, yes," Alex answered, before tipping back the last of her first bottle.

Maggie was looking intently at the board. "Okay, so three cubes on Montreal, Moscow and Bangkok, two each on Tehran, Shanghai and Milan, then one each on Paris, Taipei and Bogotá. This is not the worst starting position ever."

"Right? I'm only a bit nervous about Moscow and Tehran, since they're next to each other," Alex said. "Oh, and Shanghai and Taipei are a little worrisome, though not as bad."

Maggie nodded. "Well, I have the Delhi card, so I can fly there and pop over to Moscow, clear off one cube and protect it and Tehran."

"Ooh, I like that," Alex said, excitedly. "Okay, so I can handle Montreal here and then move to Paris and Milan to take care of those, while Kara can go take care of Asia?"

"Sounds like a plan."

"What sounds like a plan?" Kara said, around a mouthful of potsticker, a plate with the remaining food in one hand and two bottles of beer in the other. She deposited the bottles on the table before sitting down between them at the foot of the table, to Maggie's left.

"You're going to Asia," Alex announced, moving her piece to Montreal and treating it twice, clearing it of two blue cubes, before grabbing the beer and noting Kara had already removed the caps. "Thanks."

"Of course," Kara said. "And Asia, okay. I can do that, I guess."

Alex drew Chicago and Jakarta as cards and Mexico City and London were both infected with one cube on the infection phase.

Next up was Maggie. "Okay, so I'm flying to Delhi, moving to Tehran and Moscow and treating Moscow once to clear one cube."

"Right," said Alex.

Maggie discarded the Delhi card she'd had in her hand, allowing her a direct flight to the city for just a single move, then moved her piece to Tehran and to Moscow and then used her last turn to treat Moscow, removing a black cube. She drew Riyadh and Bangkok as her cards and Seoul was infected with a red cube on the infection phase, though St. Petersburg was spared any infection due to Maggie's proximity to the city. "This is  _ so _ much better than the dumb dispatcher," Maggie chuckled.

"Okay, so what am I doing?" Kara asked, looking at the board. "You want me to go to Seoul with my card, I guess?"

"Yeah, that works," said Alex. "Fly there, treat it which cleans it entirely, then go to Shanghai and clear that."

Kara nodded, stuffing another entire potsticker in her mouth and moving her piece and discarding the Seoul card and clearing red cubes. The first card she drew was an Epidemic card.

"Shit," Alex muttered.

Algiers was the city that was hit in the epidemic, giving it three black cubes. Kara drew a second card and it was Taipei. Then, they proceeded on to the infection phase. The first card was Tehran, which was protected by Maggie's quarantine specialist.

"Awesome!" exclaimed Kara. "We should always play with that role."

"Yeah, I have a good feeling about these three roles," Maggie agreed.

"Dream team," Alex chimed in, smiling over at Maggie.

The second card she drew was Bangkok, which already had three cubes. "Outbreak," Maggie announced, adding a single red cube to each of Hong Kong, Hi Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Chennai and Kolkata. "I think I should maybe be making my way over to Asia…"

"Probably," Alex agreed, moving the Outbreak meter up.

"That was not the best round," Kara said, after taking a large bite out of her last slice of pizza.

"My turn," Alex said. "Well, okay, how about instead of going north through Europe, I go to Algiers? We don't want that to outbreak, too."

"Sounds reasonable," said Maggie.

Alex moved her piece from Montreal to New York, to Madrid and ended up in Algiers, clearing one cube from it. The outbreak in Asia and the lack of a quick cure for one of the diseases promised a long game.

Things were made worse a couple of turns later when Alex drew the card for Tehran, while Maggie had Algiers, Karachi and Riyadh already, the closest anyone had to a cure for any of the diseases. The tricky part was that in order to trade the Tehran card to Maggie, both Alex and Maggie had to be in Tehran, meaning that Kara was running all over Asia to treat the red disease. Osaka was the latest city to be hit with an epidemic card and it would sure have been useful to have Maggie out there, but she was basically stuck in Tehran, waiting for Alex, who was at least two full turns away from her.

Alex had pulled the Airlift event card earlier, though.

"Well why don't we just fly Alex to Tehran so we can get Maggie to Asia sooner?" Kara had asked. "That's what the Airlift card is  _ for _ , right?"

"I only have four cards and I need five," Maggie said. "You and I should probably meet in Kolkata so you can share that card with me and then we can airlift me to Atlanta to cure the thing."

"Do we really not have another research station yet?" asked Alex. "Wow, that sucks."

"Wait, wait, wait, you want me to  _ leave _ Asia? Now!? Are you crazy?" Kara was clearly not impressed with their suggestions.

Alex shrugged. "I think there are worse things to do than for you to make your way to Kolkata, which borders Asia anyway. Then we can airlift Maggie to Atlanta and she can come back to Asia after curing black."

"Yeah, that works," said Maggie.

"You really think Osaka isn't going to, oh, I don't know, outbreak?" Kara asked. "And what about Bogotá? It's a miracle that hasn't come up again. None of us have had a chance to clean it."

"Fine, I'll hit up Bogotá after I cure black. Can you please just come to Kolkata and then head back to East Asia?" asked Maggie.

"Ugh, this is not going to go well," Kara declared, her forehead crinkling again.

"Kara, it'll be fine," Alex reassured her.

As it happened, Maggie drew Istanbul, meaning she didn't need Kolkata from Kara, she just needed Tehran from Alex. Alex arrived in Tehran and traded the card to Maggie and then moved on to Moscow. Even better, Alex then drew the Government Grant event card, allowing them to drop a research station anywhere on the map for free, so she used the event card to put one right in Tehran.

"All right, Kara," Maggie said, "I'm gonna cure black and come to Hong Kong. And we can save the Airlift card for later."

"I'm still worried about Bogotá," she muttered.

In the end, despite Bogotá outbreaking and Kara saying "I told you so!", it came down to Maggie having to wait in Taipei for Kara to get there and share the card with Maggie before Kara then moved to Shanghai to wait for Maggie to join her and get the Shanghai card, which would be the fifth and final red card to cure the red disease and win the game. All they had to do was hold out until Maggie had five red cards in her hand and then they could airlift her to Atlanta or Tehran where she could cure it.

They pulled out all the stops, using the Forecast card to rearrange the next six infected city cards to be less terrible. They used One Quiet Night, which skipped the infection phase entirely, although an Epidemic card was pulled by Alex that time, leading to Karachi outbreaking.

In the end, Maggie and Kara met up and Maggie was able to get the cure to Atlanta whereupon they won the game.

"Yes!" cried Alex, standing and raising both her hands in Maggie's direction. She stood and gave her a double high-five, feeling like a dork, but laughing anyway.

"I knew saving the Airlift would work out for us!" Maggie grinned.

"That was close," Kara said. "I thought for sure we were doomed when Karachi had the outbreak."

"Another round?" Alex asked.

Kara tilted her head and her eyes went vague. "Uh…"

"Go. Be a hero."

"Yeah, sorry," she said. "Uh, Maggie, what time should I come get you tomorrow?"

"What?"

"End of quarantine?"

"Oh!" She blinked. "Oh, I mean, don't worry about it, Kara, I can get home from here."

"No, come on, I don't want you to risk catching this thing," she said, whipping her glasses off and letting her suit assemble around her. "I'll come by around ten, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, sounds good," she said.

"Night, thanks for the game and the food!" Kara said, and headed out the door to the balcony to fly off into the night.

"Well, I kind of wanted to tell her tonight, but there goes that idea," Alex said.

"Oh God, Danvers, I don't want to be here when you tell her!" Maggie laughed.

"No?"

"No! Come on, she didn't adore me the first time around."

"She liked you just fine, she just didn't know how to share me. She's gotten better, I promise."

"Still don't want to be here for it," she grinned.

"Well, I suppose you can make it up to me tonight," Alex drawled.

"Oh? Any particular idea how?"

"Well, I was thinking… you remember that time where…?"

Maggie paused and her eyes grew wide. "You mean…?"

"I mean."

She swallowed, her mouth already dry. "We, uh, we should bring several glasses of water to the bed."

"I was thinking more on the countertop…"

"Jesus, Danvers."

"What can I say? I've been thinking about  _ that _ for three years." With that, she walked towards the kitchen. "Coming?"

She laughed and joined her girlfriend in the kitchen.

***

Maggie was aware of a noise. It was a familiar noise. It was the noise of Alex's balcony doors. In her mostly-asleep state, she didn't really understand why she was hearing the noise.

"What in the name of Rao is going on?!"

Maggie's eyes sprung open as Alex sat bolt upright, clutching the sheet to her chest. "Kara! God, don't you call first?!"

"It's ten! Maggie said I could pick her up at ten!"

Maggie turned around to see Kara staring at them. "Good morning, Kara," she managed to say, calmly.

"What… what does all this mean?"

"Oh boy," muttered Alex.

Maggie was briefly tempted to answer with a smartass remark about what happens when two people love each other, but stopped herself before she could piss off her girlfriend's sister. She wanted things to be different, this time. "We wanted to tell you last night," Maggie said, sitting up, with the sheet pulled up to her chest, vaguely aware that since it wasn't lead-lined, Kara could see right through it if she wanted to. "But you had to go and Alex didn't want to do it over the phone."

"When did this…" she said, waving her hands at them in a vague motion, "even happen? Was last night the first time? Wait,  _ were _ there any bets to start with!?"

Alex took a deep breath. "Kara, you want to give us a couple of minutes to, I don't know, get dressed maybe,  _ before _ you launch into the third degree?"

Despite everything, Maggie smiled. If this was what life was going to be like, complete with Kara showing up at inopportune moments, she was fine with it. As long as her life included Alex Danvers, everything would be fine.


	17. Epilogue

**SEVERAL MONTHS LATER...**

"Gertrude, no,  _ down _ ," Maggie was saying in the kitchen.

Alex smiled from the living room of their small house. They'd bought a house together and moved in at the end of the summer, also getting a German Shepherd puppy from one of Maggie's colleagues on the force. She was just about six months old and still a major handful.

"Danvers, I swear to God, if you've been feeding her from the counter…" Maggie called.

"I haven't!" she protested.

"Then why is Gertrude looking at me expectantly and pawing at my leg?"

Alex paused. "Have  _ you _ been feeding her from the counter?"

There was a long silence and Maggie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. "Excuse me?" she asked, hands on her hips.

Alex scrunched up her nose. "So that's a no?"

"No." She leaned against the doorframe. "I bet it's Kara."

She opened her mouth to argue and then shut it. "Ugh, you're probably right."

"Well, would you please let the Maiden of Might know that to feed our dog from the countertop while dogsitting for us is not particularly helpful?"

"Yes, dear," she said, exaggerating the resignation in her tone.

Maggie rolled her eyes. "What am I gonna do with you, Danvers?"

Alex grinned and shrugged. "You're gonna love me? Forever?" she asked, hopefully.

Her girlfriend smiled. "I suppose I could do that." She returned to the kitchen, leaving Alex in the living room, staring into the fire they had going in the fireplace. The television was on softly in the background, counting down to the new year.

It had been a hell of a year, she reflected. Seeing Maggie at the conference, getting quarantined with her, breaking up with Kelly, getting back together with Maggie… Even though the pandemic had persisted for a while, things were finally getting back to normal with widespread mask adoption and so-called "circuit-breaker" shutdowns that helped to stop a great deal of outbreaks before they could get worse. Plus the national and regional contact-tracing programs that had been put into place were hugely effective, along with the national COVID app that had been released. As a doctor, Alex knew it could have been far worse than it had been. Vaccines were already being given out and both Alex and Maggie had gotten their first doses of the first vaccine. Life was slowly returning to normal in the United States.

Life itself was certainly very different now than how it had been a year ago. A year ago, she couldn't have conceived of living with her partner, much less buying a house together. Of course, her partner had been Kelly. They really had never clicked, not the way she and Maggie had.

She sat back, putting her feet up on the coffee table, and smiled. Life was so much better than she could have imagined it would be after encountering Maggie all those months ago at the conference.

Maggie came out of the kitchen, carrying a tray with two flutes of champagne and a plate with chilled, chocolate-covered strawberries. Gertrude was, of course, following Maggie around, hoping for some scraps. She really did need to talk to Kara about being such a soft touch for the dog.

"Almost midnight," Maggie said, setting the tray down on the coffee table. "Gertrude,  _ no _ ," she said, firmly, as the puppy sniffed at the tray. "Chocolate is bad for you! Go, go lay down," she pointed.

With a pout, the dog laid down on the carpet by the fire, leaving Maggie rolling her eyes and Alex grinning.

"This is perfect, you know," she said, snagging a strawberry and taking a bite. "And this is wonderful."

"Glad you think so," Maggie said, in a strange tone.

"You okay?"

Maggie looked at her watch. "Yeah, yeah, I'm good."

"What's up?"

Maggie took the two flutes of champagne and handed one to her, keeping one for herself. "Alex, the last several months have been a strange combination of wonderful and weird, difficult and easy, exciting and mundane," she said. "Hard to believe that we have to be thankful for this pandemic for bringing us back together."

Alex smiled. "Wild, right?"

"And now, the pandemic is settling down, life is getting back to normal, and we've embarked on the next stage of our relationship. I love that we've taken this little house and made it into a home, with photos and knickknacks and a dog."

"Me too," she said.

Maggie took a breath. "And so, I was wondering, if maybe you'd share a toast with me to 2020 and a toast to 2021?"

"Of course."

Maggie held the glass up, higher than normal, almost to her forehead. "To 2020, for reuniting us, and to 2021 and all the adventures that await us."

Alex frowned and held her glass up higher, too, clinking it against Maggie's… and then saw the sparkle in her glass.

"Maggie," she breathed, pulling the glass back towards her and looking inside of it. Nestled at the bottom of the champagne was a diamond ring.

"So, what do you say, Danvers?" Maggie asked, struggling to sound casual even as her voice quavered just a bit. "Will you make 2021 the best year ever and be my wife?"

She looked up at her, her eyes filled with tears, wearing a smile so big that it threatened to break her face. Maggie was looking a little scared and very nervous. "Maggie, of course," she said, leaning forward and kissing her gently.

Maggie pulled back, smiling, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," she grinned.

They managed to get the ring out of the glass and, after a quick rinse, Maggie slipped it on Alex's finger. "I love you."

"I love you too, Maggie."

They kissed sweetly, as the celebrations on the television started as 2021 arrived on the West Coast.

"Happy new year, fiancée," Maggie whispered, nuzzling into Alex's neck.

"Happy new year, fiancée," she replied.

It had definitely been one hell of a year, she smiled, as she curled up on the couch with the woman she was going to marry. And she wouldn't have changed a thing.


End file.
